How to build a Kandyan wedding timeline that actually works

Nearly every Sri Lankan wedding I photograph is built around nekath — auspicious times set months in advance. They are not negotiable, and everything else has to bend around them.

Start from the poruwa, and work backwards

If your poruwa time is 6:12 in the morning, that is the fixed point. Work backwards from it:

• Three hours before — bridal dressing begins. This is where the quietest, most photographable moments of the whole day happen.
• Ninety minutes before — the groom's party arrives and settles.
• Forty minutes before — guests are seated, and I move into position.

Protect twenty minutes for portraits

Twenty minutes. That is genuinely all I need, and it is the single most common thing couples forget to schedule. Put it in immediately after the ceremony while the light is still soft and while you both still look exactly as you did walking in.

The couples who are happiest with their galleries are the ones who left gaps in the schedule, not the ones who filled every minute.

Build in a buffer before the reception

Something always runs late — the cars, a relative, the traffic on the way in. Thirty minutes of slack between the ceremony and the reception absorbs almost every kind of delay without anyone noticing.

Eat

I mean it. Ask your planner to hold a plate for you both somewhere private. Every couple who skips this regrets it by nine o'clock.