# Vesperline

> Free wedding day timeline generator: real sunset and golden hour for your date and venue, vendor run sheets, family shot list, budget and bar calculator.

- Vesperline builds a wedding-day timeline from the date, venue, ceremony time, hair & makeup, travel and reception format, and schedules couple portraits in golden hour.
- Sun times come from the SunCalc algorithm: golden hour = sun 6° above the horizon down to sunset; blue hour = sunset to civil dusk (sun 6° below).
- It produces per-vendor run sheets (photographer, videographer, DJ/band, caterer, bar, planner, hair & makeup, officiant), a family shot-list generator, a budget tracker, share links and .ics calendar export.
- Free in the browser during the beta (as of October 2026); plans are stored only in the browser, share links carry the plan in the URL fragment.
- Sunset pages cover 16 wedding destinations × 12 months of 2027, computed at build time; ceremony-time pages cover 1 pm to 6 pm starts.
- The mobile bar section turns guests × hours × drink mix into bottles, cases, kegs, ice and mixers (US, UK and Australian serving sizes) and prices bar events from staff, travel, licence, consumables and equipment costs.
- Rule-of-thumb defaults: 45 min per person for hair & makeup, about 2 min per family photo grouping, 2 drinks per drinking guest in the first hour then 1 per hour.
- UK Temporary Event Notice facts used (GOV.UK, checked 17 October 2026): £21 fee, fewer than 500 people, up to 168 hours, at least 10 clear working days notice (late TEN 5–9).
- Budget benchmarks: US average $34,200 / $292 per guest (The Knot 2026 Real Weddings Study); UK average £21,990 / £272 per guest (Hitched, January 2026).

## Tools

- [Wedding timeline generator](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/): Free wedding day timeline generator: real sunset and golden hour for your date and venue, vendor run sheets, family shot list, budget and bar calculator.
- [Wedding bar shopping list calculator](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/bar/): Guests × hours × mix → bottles, cases, kegs, ice, mixers and glassware.
- [Mobile bar pricing calculator](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/bar/pricing/): Quote, margin, break-even, startup costs and a printable package menu for mobile bar businesses.
- [Mobile bar licensing checklists](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/bar/licensing/): UK Temporary Event Notice checklist and official US state alcohol agency links.

## Reference pages

- [Wedding timelines by ceremony time](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/timeline/): Computed sample days for 1 pm to 6 pm ceremonies, with season comparisons.
- [Sunset times for weddings](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/sunset/): Every Saturday’s golden hour, sunset and blue hour for 16 destinations, each month of 2027.

## Guides

- [Wedding day timeline examples, minute by minute](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/wedding-day-timeline-examples/): A wedding day timeline is built backwards and forwards from the ceremony. For a 3 pm ceremony with five people in hair and makeup and two artists, hair and makeup starts around 11:10 am, the photographer arrives about 12:55 pm, cocktail hour runs 3:45–4:45 pm and dinner starts around 5:05 pm. The three sample days below show every block with its length, computed for real June and September dates in New York.
- [Golden hour wedding photos, timed to the minute](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/golden-hour-wedding-photos/): Golden hour is the time before sunset when the sun is less than about 6° above the horizon. On a mid-June Saturday in 2027 it starts at 8:28 pm in London (sunset 9:22 pm) and 7:50 pm in New York (sunset 8:31 pm); in mid-December London's starts at 2:52 pm. Plan a 15–20 minute portrait slip-away that ends just before sunset, then use the blue hour that follows for flash or twinkle-light shots.
- [First look vs no first look timeline](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/first-look-vs-no-first-look-timeline/): A first look moves couple portraits, wedding party and family photos before the ceremony. For a 4 pm ceremony that means starting hair and makeup at about 10:25 am instead of 12:10 pm, but the couple joins their own cocktail hour. Without one, those photos must fit into a 60-minute cocktail hour, which holds about 8 family groupings. Choose a first look when sunset is within about 2 hours of the ceremony or your photo list is long.
- [Wedding hair and makeup timeline, worked out](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/wedding-hair-and-makeup-timeline/): Wedding hair and makeup time is people × minutes each ÷ number of artists, rounded up. Five or six people at 45 minutes with two artists take 2 h 15 min; for a 4 pm ceremony with a 20-minute drive, that means starting at about 12:10 pm, finishing at 2:25 pm, then 15 minutes of breathing room and 30 minutes to get dressed. Ask your artists for their own per-person times — they vary with hair length and style.
- [Wedding family photo list and combinations](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/wedding-shot-list-family-combinations/): A good family photo list starts with the biggest group and peels people off a layer at a time, with grandparents early so they can sit down. For two families of eight people that gives about 12 groupings, which take 25–30 minutes at 2–2.5 minutes each — the most you can fit in a 60-minute cocktail hour alongside the wedding party and couple portraits. Give the list to a family member who knows everyone and will call names.
- [Wedding budget breakdown by category](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/wedding-budget-breakdown/): The average US wedding cost $34,200, or $292 per guest, for couples married in 2025 (The Knot 2026 Real Weddings Study); the average UK wedding cost £21,990, or £272 per guest (Hitched, January 2026). A common planning split puts about 45 % on venue and catering, 12 % on photo and video, 9 % on flowers and decor and 8 % on attire, with 3 % held back as contingency. Track each category as planned, quoted and paid.
- [How much alcohol for a wedding (with math)](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/how-much-alcohol-for-a-wedding/): Plan about two drinks per drinking guest in the first hour and one per hour after. For 100 guests (85 drinking) over a 5-hour reception that is 510 drinks: with a 30 % beer, 45 % wine, 25 % spirits mix, buy 47 bottles of wine, 7 cases of beer, 10 bottles of liquor and 13 bottles of sparkling for one toast each, plus about 300 lb of ice. These are planning rules of thumb, not measurements — adjust them for your crowd.
- [Dry hire vs full-service bar for a wedding](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/dry-hire-vs-full-service-bar/): With a dry-hire bar you buy the alcohol and the bar company supplies the bar, staff, ice, mixers and know-how; with a full-service bar the company supplies and serves the drinks too, under its own licence or permit. Dry hire is usually cheaper and lets you control the drinks bill, but you carry the shopping and leftovers. In England and Wales any bar that sells alcohol at an unlicensed venue needs a licence or a £21 Temporary Event Notice; US rules vary by state.
- [Mobile bar pricing from your real costs](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/mobile-bar-business-pricing/): Price a mobile bar event by adding every cost of that event — staff hours including set-up and travel, vehicle running costs, licence fees, consumables, drinks if you supply them — plus a share of equipment wear, insurance and overheads, then divide by (1 − margin − card fees). In a worked US example for 100 guests, a dry-hire event costs about $752 and quotes at $1,213 ($12 a guest) for a 35 % margin; full service quotes at about $3,267.
- [Temporary Event Notice for a wedding bar](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/guides/uk-temporary-event-notice-weddings/): In England and Wales, a wedding bar that sells alcohol at a venue without a suitable premises licence needs a Temporary Event Notice (TEN). As of October 2026 a TEN costs £21, covers fewer than 500 people for up to 168 hours, and must reach the council at least 10 clear working days before the event (a late TEN: 5 to 9). For a Saturday 5 June 2027 wedding that means the council must receive it by Thursday 20 May 2027.

## Optional

- [Full text of all guides](https://wedding-timeline.pages.dev/llms-full.txt): every guide as plain Markdown