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Not every Ibiza wedding bride and groom need a full wedding planner, and Cris knows this. Therefore, in order the complement her “On the day coordination” service, she had decided to open her books and make them public. Like this, she if giving all couples this FREE resource to be able to self-plan their Ibiza wedding without the need of hiring a full-time wedding planner.

Before your start self-planning your Ibiza wedding

Believe me, I know how tempting it is to start the wedding planning process anywhere that feels good for you. This may be because you are driven by music and entertainment, florals and design or because you already follow your favourite Ibiza wedding photographer or cake maker on Instagram. But my advice, as an experienced wedding planner is to hold-back for just a minute and plan out your wedding planning for it to be time-efficient and effective. The better organised you get from the beginning, the better you will manage your communications and decision-making process.

First up: timings!

The very first thing you need to determine when starting off your Ibiza wedding planning is setting your timelines. If you do this in the very early stages of planning it will for sure save you a lot of time! Check with your Ibiza wedding venue to see if they already have a sample guideline off these and in case your are planning a villa wedding, then we have got you covered here.

1st step: determine your finishing time. Most venues on the island are limited to a midnight music cut-off time due to local Balearic laws. If your wedding venue has a license then this time could be extended. Check with them first.

2nd step: decide how long you would like your dancefloor (DJ, dancing and bar service) to last for. I personally would recommend anything between 3 and 5 hours giving you a long day event.

3rd step: speeches. Instead of giving this unlimited time, I recommend you allocate a maximum of 30 minutes to this part. Longer speeches can kill the party vibe.

4th step: determine how long the dinner service will last. This will be determined by various factors such as venue layout, menu and number of guests. If you are unsure of how long it will take then ask your caterers or venue. We usually like to allocate 1.5 – 2 hours to this service which even if excessive will bring to the table that relaxed Mediterranean vibe.

5th step: before the dinner you will be enjoying your post-ceremony drinks and canapes time; also know as the cocktail reception. I have seen venues and caterers allocating 1 hour to this although I personally prefer this to last 1.5 – 2 hours depending on the number of people attending your Ibiza wedding. Why so long? Because you want to have enough time to be able to be congratulated by everyone, have some group and couple portraits taken and maybe even have a make-up retouch. All of this takes time and you don’t want to be stressed about the idea that you will need to skip any of this.

6th step: your wedding ceremony or blessing. Know that all Ibiza wedding are actually blessings and therefore you will need to register in your hometown. This makes Ibiza wedding ceremonies much more personal to each individual and a part that you will look forward to because you will be able to share your love story with your exclusive choice of witnesses. Usually, whether the ceremony is conducted by a celebrant or someone designated from your wedding party, this part tends to last about 30 minutes.

7th step: guest arrival to the venue. A 30-minute bracket for arrival time is usually a good amount of time for people to arrive at your venue, be escorted to the ceremony area and given a welcome drink for the waiting time. I 100% recommend that you keep this part of the day alcohol-free as guests will have already had a drink or two and therefore considering the weather conditions, hydration should be a priority. Plus you want everyone nice and sharp for your ceremony that has probably taken you months of preparation.

With all of this said, you should now have timings that look like something like this:

4.00 PM – Guests arrive at your wedding venue

4.00 PM – 4.30 PM – Blessing of your marriage

5.00 PM – 6.30 PM – Post-ceremony drinks & canapes

6.30 PM – 8.30 PM – Dinner service

8.30 PM – 9.00 PM – Speeches and cake cutting (this can happen earlier too!)

9.00 PM – 0.00 AM Open bar & dancefloor (3 hours)

00.00 AM Guests departure

Tips: in order to ensure you’re always on budget and that your time is used efficiently, we recommend you determine your hours of bar and timings from the very beginning. This will avoid you having to get back to suppliers at a later date with any schedule changes! Use the above to determine timings now and stick to them throughout.

Notes: compared to other destinations, it may seem that your wedding in Ibiza starts “late” but earlier start to 3 PM are not recommended due to the heat. Plus, there is no “moving-time” to factor in from reception to venue. For church weddings, you will need to check with the church for their hours of service and then continue the above recommendations factoring in the time from the church to your venue (minimum 1 hour).