The wedding morning call sheet template you can fill in tonight

Stage one: the header block

• Write the ready time first and build backward from itReady time is when the bride must be completely finished, not the ceremony time. Ask the photographer for the first look and set ready fifteen minutes ahead of that.
• Name the room, the door and the parkingSuite number, which entrance, where the team parks and whether there is an elevator or a service door. Your second artist should never be calling you from a lobby.
• List every artist with a phone number and an arrival timeArrival is earlier than first chair. Twenty to thirty minutes covers load in, table setup, lighting and getting a hand washed before anyone sits down.
• Record the count by service, not by headSix hair and eight makeup is a different morning from fourteen of both. Put both numbers in the header so nobody has to work it out from the list below.
• Mark the one slot that cannot moveUsually the bride, sometimes a mother leaving for family photos. Write it in bold at the top, because every other decision on the morning bends around it.

Stage two: the chair schedule

• Give every person a name, a service and a start timeBridesmaid is not a name. Write Kayla, hair, eight fifteen, so an artist can call across the room and get the right person out of the bathroom.
• Put the bride last, ending at ready time minus your bufferHer makeup stays freshest and any recovered time lands on her. Give her a longer slot than anyone else in the party, veil and dress included.
• Front load anyone who has to leave earlyThe mother in family photos at nine forty, the aunt driving the grandmother, the sister collecting flowers. Ask the question at the final call rather than discovering it on the day.
• Place your buffer as blocks, not as padding in each slotTwo blocks of fifteen to twenty minutes, one before the bride and one before ready time, survive the morning. Minutes hidden inside slots quietly disappear.
• Flag longer services in the list itselfExtensions, airbrush, clip ins and thick hair updos are not the same slot as a simple blowout. Mark them so nobody assumes a standard forty minutes.
• Write the dress and lunch window as real linesThe morning stops for both whether you scheduled them or not. Giving them a line means the photographer and the planner can see them too.

Stage three: artist assignments

• Give each artist her own column of names and timesNobody should be reading the whole sheet to find her next client. Each artist wants five or six lines that are only hers, in order.
• Assign the bride to the artist who did her trialThe trial artist knows the look, the products and the timing. Swapping that at the last moment is the single most common source of a rushed bride.
• Name who runs touch ups and who packs downIn the last thirty minutes one person stays on the bride and the other closes the kits. Decide it in advance so it does not turn into a hesitation.
• Write the handoff for anyone getting both servicesIf Kayla has hair at eight fifteen and makeup at nine, both artists need to see that line. The handoff time is where two room mornings break down.
• Say who owns the clockOne person calls the timing and everyone else works. Usually the lead artist, occasionally the planner, but it has to be named at the top of the sheet.

Stage four: send and confirm

• Confirm the final count in writing seven days outAsk for names, not a number. This is when the mother of the groom and the second flower girl appear, while you can still rebuild the schedule calmly.
• Send the call sheet to the couple, the planner and the photographerOne send, one document. The photographer especially will tell you if your ready time misses the first look by ten minutes.
• Send each artist her own column the night beforeNot the whole sheet, just her lines. She should be able to check her first client and her arrival time from her phone at bedtime.
• Print one copy and put it on the kit tablePhones die, hotel wifi fails, hands are covered in product. A paper copy in the room settles every question without anyone unlocking anything.
• Add a line at the bottom for actual timesWrite down when each person really started and finished. Three weddings of that data and your per person estimates stop being guesses.