When to hold the ceremony, when to take portraits and how long each part of the day needs — with sunset times for Alicante and Valencia, month by month.
What decides how wedding photographs look is not the camera, the venue or the dress. It is the hour at which things happen. The same terrace at three in the afternoon in July means hard shadows, squinting and shiny faces; at half past eight it is gold. A timeline built around the light costs nothing, and it changes everything.
Start from the sunset and count backwards
The rule that works here almost all year: begin the ceremony about two and a half hours before sunset. That leaves time for congratulations, family photographs and a drink, and puts your portraits in the last, best light of the day.
| Month | Sunset | Ceremony at |
|---|---|---|
| April | 20:35 | 18:00 |
| May | 21:05 | 18:30 |
| June | 21:30 | 19:00 |
| July | 21:25 | 19:00 |
| August | 21:00 | 18:30 |
| September | 20:10 | 17:30 |
| October, until the clocks change | 19:25 | 17:00 |
| November – February | 17:40 – 18:40 | 15:30 – 16:00 |
Times are for the middle of each month and are the same, within a few minutes, in Alicante and in Valencia. The clocks go back on the last Sunday of October, and the sunset moves an hour earlier overnight.
A sample timeline: June, ceremony at 19:00
- 15:30 — Getting ready: details, the dress, the last touches
- 17:45 — Dressed, with a few quiet minutes with parents and friends
- 18:30 — Guests arrive
- 19:00 — Ceremony
- 19:30 — Congratulations, confetti, family photographs
- 20:00 — Drinks; I photograph your guests while you enjoy them
- 20:50 — Portraits of the two of you, ten to fifteen minutes
- 21:30 — Sunset; dinner begins
- 23:45 — First dance, and the party
That is about ten hours from the first photograph to an hour into the dancing — a full day.
Getting ready: the light is in the room
- Pick the room with the biggest window, not the biggest room. Daylight from one side is the most flattering light there is.
- Turn off the lamps. Mixed daylight and yellow bulbs make skin look strange.
- Clear one corner. Bags, bottles and chargers go in the wardrobe. You do not need a tidy house, just one clean wall by the window.
- Put the details together: rings, shoes, invitation, perfume, jewellery. Ten minutes saved on looking for them.
- Finish hair and make-up 45 minutes before you leave. A delay here is taken out of everything that follows.
The ceremony
Ask the venue where the sun will be at that hour, and stand there with them on the visit if you can.
The best is open shade, or the sun behind you. The worst is light falling through a pergola or a tree, which puts bright spots on faces, and a spot where one of you stands in the sun and the other in shade.
Think about your guests too. If they sit facing a low sun for half an hour, they will remember that more than the vows. In summer, leave water and fans on the chairs.
And consider asking the celebrant to invite everyone to put their phones away until you walk back down the aisle. In the photographs you will see faces instead of screens.
Family photographs without losing an hour
- Write the list in advance, with names: eight to ten groups at most. Each takes two or three minutes.
- Name a helper — someone loud and friendly who knows both families and can call people over.
- Do them straight after the ceremony, before everyone finds the bar.
- Start with the grandparents, so they can sit down.
Ten minutes at golden hour
About forty minutes before sunset I will take the two of you away from the party for ten to fifteen minutes. No one will miss you, and it is often the first time that day you are alone together.
If you are nervous about being photographed, this is the part to look forward to, not to fear. I will not ask you to pose. You walk, you talk, you hold on to each other, and I work around you. It tends to be the calmest moment of the day.
Leave air in the schedule
Everything takes longer than it does on paper: buttons, traffic, hugs. Put ten to fifteen spare minutes between the main parts of the day. And if the ceremony and the dinner are in different places, check the drive for the real day and hour — the coast road on a Saturday in August is not the coast road in March.
How many hours of photography do you need?
Count from the first moment you want photographed to about an hour after the first dance. For a full day here that usually comes to ten hours; from the ceremony into the celebration, about six. The packages are built around exactly these timings.
Every package includes a call before the wedding to go through the timeline together. If you already have a draft, send it over — I am happy to look at it.
