Photography timeline recommendations for your wedding at Cancun and the Riviera Maya

A timeline isn’t a schedule for the photographer. It is how the day is designed so the moments that matter happen in good light and without rushing. For me, photography isn’t a block inserted into the day — it is part of how we plan it.

These are the recommendations I give every couple getting married in Cancun and the Riviera Maya. Every wedding is different, and the final timeline is always built with your planner; this is the thinking behind it. The photographs are from one wedding at Hyatt Ziva Cancun, in the order the day happened.

Start from the ceremony time

Everything is built backwards from one number: the sunset on your wedding date. I recommend starting the ceremony one and a half to two hours before sunset. The ceremony gets soft, warm light; family photographs happen right after, while your guests start the cocktail hour; and the two of you keep the last hour of daylight for portraits.

Avoid a ceremony at midday or early afternoon: the Caribbean sun is high and hard, everyone squints and the heat is hard on your guests. The ceremony time guide calculates the sunset and the ceremony window for your exact date.

How much coverage the day needs

Six hours cover the whole day — getting ready, the ceremony, family and wedding party photographs, your portraits and the reception — in a more concentrated way. Eight hours give more room between those moments and reach the dancing, the part of the night most couples remember. Neither leaves out getting ready or the ceremony; the difference is space and how late into the night we stay. Which one fits depends on your ceremony time, your guest count and how the day is laid out at the venue, so tell me about your day and I’ll tell you where I would begin.

The getting-ready room

Choose a room with natural light and space: windows or a balcony make an enormous difference, so use the bridal suite only if it has them. If the room is small and the bridal party is large, ask the hotel whether the spa or a garden is available for the group photographs.

Keep the room tidy — bed made, no open luggage or bottles in sight — and have the details ready in one place when I arrive: rings, bouquet, dress, shoes, jewellery, perfume, invitations.

Getting ready

I usually begin with the groom, alone or with his friends, for about thirty minutes. If there is plenty of time before the ceremony, he can change back into something comfortable afterwards and relax.

Then the bride’s room, which is a different story: bridesmaids, mothers and family all helping, and some of the most intimate moments of the day.

Ask your stylist to finish hair and makeup at least ninety minutes before the ceremony. Even if someone runs late, there is still time for the details, the last touch-ups and the moment you put on your dress.

A first look, or not

A first look is a choice, not a rule. What it gives you is time: portraits before the ceremony, in a place chosen for the light, so the golden hour after the ceremony is free. At venues with rooftop ceremonies or many spaces to photograph, I usually recommend it; at a calm, compact venue with an early ceremony, it matters less. If there is one, we decide together where it makes sense and what it frees up afterwards. Each venue guide has my recommendation for that venue.

The ceremony

A few things make the ceremony photographs much better:

• Ask your guests to stay seated and keep their phones low — a row of tablets in the aisle blocks the moment for everyone.
• Ask the planner, the videographer and the hotel staff not to cross the background while you walk down the aisle.
• Keep bags and water bottles away from the chairs and the aisle.
• Have a covered option ready for any date. It is the Caribbean. What happens when it rains.
• From May to August, keep sargassum in mind: it changes from year to year and beach to beach, and it is handled by choosing where and from which direction to photograph.

Family and wedding party photographs

The idea is not to improvise a list of combinations while fifty people wait. We prepare the important groups beforehand and photograph them in an organised, efficient way, so you can go back to your guests. Send me the list before the wedding, and choose someone who knows both families to help gather everyone. A typical list starts with:

• The two of you with each set of parents
• With your siblings
• With grandparents
• With the wedding party

When the groups are done, your guests go to the cocktail hour and the two of you have the last hour of light for portraits.

Count the walking

Many resorts on this coast are large, and some are golf-cart resorts. Before the wedding I go through the distances between the suite, the ceremony, the portraits and the reception with your planner, because thirty minutes set aside for portraits can turn into ten when twenty are spent walking from one end of the resort to the other.

The reception

Ask your planner to hold the guests for a few minutes before they enter, so the reception can be photographed exactly as it was designed, before anyone sits down.

Cutting the cake before the party starts is worth it: you do it while your hair, makeup and dress are still perfect, and then you can simply enjoy the night.

The moments nobody schedules

Planning the day carefully is what makes room for the moments that aren’t on any list: your parents seeing you, friends finding each other, someone’s reaction during the ceremony, the time between events. That is where a large part of the story of the day lives, and I try to protect those spaces as much as the planned ones.

My work doesn’t begin when I pick up the camera. It begins when we help the day make sense to photograph.

If you have a date and a venue, tell me about them — I’ll reply with the light for that day and how I would build the timeline around it.