Wedding Run Sheet Template (Australia): 15 Rows

In Australia the minute-by-minute plan for the day is called a run sheet, and a wedding run sheet template is only worth filling in if the minutes inside it are the ones local suppliers actually work to. Two blocks do the damage when they are guessed. Australian celebrants put a civil ceremony at 20 to 30 minutes, not the ten that fits neatly on a page, and Bridebook's Australian edition recommends the whole speeches segment wrap inside 20 to 30 minutes and never pass 40.²⁶

Copy the rows below, or open a day that is already timed in the run sheet generator and edit from there.

What goes in an Australian wedding run sheet

Run sheet is the local word for it. Jordan, founder and lead wedding coordinator at Managing Matrimony, puts the split plainly: in Australia we say runsheet, in the US they say timeline.¹ Same document either way, and the two names are pulled apart in run sheet or wedding timeline.

Fifteen rows cover a standard Australian day. The middle column is yours. The third column is how long the block is given here, and the sources for each of those figures are in the next section.

Nine of those fifteen rows are offsets rather than decisions, and the generator places them from the times you type: getting ready at the ceremony minus four hours, the cars at minus 45 minutes, guests at minus 30, family photos at plus 30, the couple introduced three hours after the ceremony. Dinner, speeches and the first dance sit 45, 90 and 150 minutes into the reception, and the send-off five hours in.

Nine rows place themselves from the ceremony time. Six are yours to decide.

How long each block runs in Australia

Five figures carry most of the risk in the table above.

Six Australian celebrants answering the same question on Easy Weddings land on 20 to 30 minutes for a civil ceremony, and the celebrant body AMC bands it the same way at 15 to 30 depending on what you put in it.²³ A registry ceremony is shorter, and how long a wedding ceremony takes works through the difference.

For canapes a Melbourne caterer sets bounds rather than a length: under 45 minutes feels rushed once guests have to move between spaces, and over two hours leaves them hungry and tired before the main meal.⁴ That window gets its own page in how long cocktail hour is.

Dinner service and dancing come from one Australian wedding DJ's block budget: 30 to 45 minutes to get mains out, and at least 90 to 120 minutes of floor at the end of the night.⁵

Speeches are the block that eats the others, because nobody in the room can shorten them once they start. Bridebook recommends the whole segment stay inside 20 to 30 minutes with 40 as the ceiling, and Easy Weddings recommends 3 to 5 minutes per speech.⁶⁷ Put both numbers on the sheet, and give the total to whoever is holding the microphone. How long wedding speeches should be goes further into it.

The five blocks Australian suppliers time, drawn low figure to high.

Type the ceremony time and read the rest back The run sheet generator places the derived rows off the times you enter, so the middle column is the only manual part of the table above.

Three rows Australian run sheets leave off

The signing. Under the Marriage Act a marriage may be solemnised on any day, at any time and at any place, but the authorised celebrant has to be physically present and at least two witnesses over 18 have to be there.¹⁰ Three marriage certificates get signed on the day.¹¹ So it is a row with two names written on it, sitting inside the ceremony block, rather than an unlabelled gap between the vows and the photographs.

The hour the camera leaves. Australian photographers put standard coverage at eight hours, sometimes stretching to ten, with a full day at ten to twelve.⁸ A run sheet that opens at getting ready and closes at the send-off is longer than that on a 3:00 PM ceremony: eleven in the morning to eleven at night. Decide which end of the day goes uncovered while the booking is still open, and write the finish time on the sheet. The photographer run sheet template is the same day filtered down to their rows.

Twelve hours of run sheet against a standard eight-hour booking.

The real guest number. Australian couples plan for an average of 108 guests and end up with 85, inviting 23 fewer than they first counted.⁹ Canape counts, table numbers and the bus back into town are all sized off the second number, so it belongs on the run sheet rather than in a spreadsheet somebody else is holding.

Planned against actual, from the 2026 Australian industry report.

Who gets a copy, and when

Two to three weeks out, once the ceremony time and the photographer's booked hours are both settled. Jordan sends the finished run sheet to every paid supplier, plus the MC, the wedding party, the parents and one trusted family member as a backup point of contact, and ships it as both a PDF to print and a live link for last-minute edits.¹

A file is out of date the moment the celebrant moves twenty minutes, and everyone is holding whichever copy they downloaded first, which is the argument for sending the link. On the paid side, DIY is a single payment for the wedding rather than a monthly charge, which suits an event with an end date. See pricing.

Common questions

What is a run sheet at a wedding? The minute-by-minute schedule of the day, sent to the people working it. Run sheet is the Australian name and timeline is the American one for the same document.¹

Where should the run sheet start? At the first supplier on site, not at getting ready. Venue access is usually the earliest fixed time you have, and the florist and the caterer both work backwards from it.

How much padding should I add? Jordan names under-padded transitions as the biggest mistake couples make: 30 minutes after the ceremony for photographs and travel, 15 minutes before the reception entry, and 10 minutes between speakers.¹

Is a run sheet legally required? No. The law sets the celebrant, the witnesses and the words, and states that a marriage may be solemnised on any day, at any time and at any place.¹⁰ Every time on the sheet is an operational decision.

What if the venue changes the ceremony time? Change that one field. The nine derived rows follow it, and any time you typed yourself stays exactly where you put it.

Do I still need one if I have a coordinator? Yes, and turning up with the fifteen rows filled in saves the first two meetings. They will rebuild it in their own format, which is their job.

Which template should I start from? This one for an Australian day. The wedding day timeline template is the same day under the American name, and how to make a wedding day timeline builds one from scratch off a single time.

The next decision

Fill the middle column for the six rows that are yours - suppliers on site, the ceremony, the signing, canapes, dancing and pack-down - then let the other nine place themselves in the run sheet generator. The decision waiting immediately after that is the photographer's finish time, because it is the one row that costs money to change later. Everything else on this page is free to use, and the full day it comes from is the wedding run sheet template.