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Updated Mar 06, 2025Experts Share the Formula for a Perfect Wedding Weekend
Make the most of your time with family and friends.
Photo: Gorodenkoff | Shutterstock
Whether you have guests coming in from out of town or you just want to keep the celebrations going, planning an entire wedding weekend itinerary is a thoughtful way to make the most of your days with family and friends. This is one of the few times you'll have all your people in one place, so use it as an excuse to plan all your favorite activities, packed into one weekend.
A wedding welcome party, rehearsal dinner or a post-wedding brunch might already be on your wedding planning checklist, but each piece needs to be carefully worked into a wedding timeline. You might also want to include a morning at the spa, a luncheon or a golf outing, but you have to make sure there's enough time to get from one activity to the next, with enough downtime in between.
Wondering how to strike the right balance between a memorable weekend of celebrations and one that doesn't leave enough time to change from spa day to ceremony? Here's how three expert wedding planners coordinate the perfect wedding weekend itinerary.
In this article:
What Is a Wedding Weekend?
While weddings are traditionally thought of only as a ceremony and reception, perhaps with a rehearsal dinner if you're in the wedding, the idea of a wedding weekend is becoming more commonplace, particularly if there are a significant number of out-of-town guests. The wedding weekend could include everything from an afternoon outing as everyone arrives to welcome drinks to the rehearsal dinner to another outing, like the spa or golf, to a bridal luncheon, to the actual wedding, to a day-after brunch and sendoff. There may even be a wedding recovery day outing, like a boat ride or hike.
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The idea is to bring together all your loved ones in a single place for a several-day celebration. With more destination weddings and more guests traveling for weddings, it makes the most of this time together and makes guests feel as if they're getting more out of their investment in travel. Hosting multiple wedding weekend activities also shows that you value your guests' time and energy in showing up to celebrate your new chapter.
How to Plan a Wedding Weekend
"The goal is to balance out a wedding weekend with both structured social moments, and relaxing, rejuvenating activities, allowing guests to enjoy mixing and mingling with the couple and their family and friends, while also resting and reserving their energy for the big, important moments—like the wedding day," says Shelby Donald, owner and lead planner at Shelby Donald Coordination in Boise, Idaho.
Find a Venue for Your Wedding Weekend
Ness McGovern, New York City planner and designer at Ness McGovern Events and Design, explains that the key is making it easy for guests to feel comfortable throughout the weekend, and that means finding a venue that can host many, if not all, of the activities. "No switching hotels, no check-ins/outs during events. Have everything in one place as much as possible to prevent the added time of travel and the headache of changing hotels or parking and other logistics," McGovern says.
Need to find a wedding weekend venue near you? Check out The Knot Vendor Marketplace and filter by guest size, location, type and more.
Budget for the Cost of a Wedding Weekend
McGovern explains that the cost of a wedding weekend depends entirely on the scale of the activities and the details involved. "To give you an example, a formal tented wedding reception with specialty rentals for 150 guests with a restaurant buy-out for 50 people at the rehearsal dinner, followed by a casual brunch at the guest hotel amounted to $425,000 in Connecticut in 2024," McGovern says.
She explains that a wedding weekend can cost more or less, though it should be expected that a full itinerary could easily reach six figures. Need help tracking your wedding budget throughout the process? Use The Knot Budget Tool to keep things in check.
Start a Wedding Website to Communicate With Guests About the Wedding Weekend
The more wedding weekend activities there are, the more important communication is to keep all of your guests organized. Start a wedding website to communicate with your guests about which activities are happening, which require an RSVP, what the attire is and when they need to handle their own bookings.
Sample Wedding Weekend Itinerary
When you're planning your wedding weekend itinerary, the first thing to consider is what are the parts of the wedding weekend and which of those parts mean the most to you. Not every wedding weekend needs to look exactly the same. You can customize it to your interests and the activities that work for you and your wedding destination. Donald adds, "For destination weddings, it's especially important to consider including authentically local activities, allowing guests to see and experience what the destination has to offer."
Here's a sample wedding weekend template for a wedding that occurs on Saturday but, as McGovern reminds us, "A wedding weekend is a marathon and you don't want to complicate or overtire your guests."
Thursday Wedding Weekend Activities
"For a standard Saturday wedding, activities will start on Thursday, typically early evening for welcome drinks and perhaps a light activity or outing," says Danielle Rothweiler, owner and lead wedding and event planner at Rothweiler Event Design based in Verona, New Jersey.
Friday Wedding Weekend Activities
Rothweiler says, "On Friday, there are activities throughout the day to give the guests options to choose from and at night there is typically a more formal welcome dinner as that is when everyone will officially arrive."
Weekend wedding ideas for this day include a luncheon with the wedding party, a meet-up at the pool if you're at a resort or even a yoga class. This is when you get to come together in a more casual setting.
"For the day before the wedding, I would recommend something fun that is going to be of a decidedly different level of formality from the actual wedding day. A sporting event or a clam bake would be a great contrast to a traditionally formal wedding," McGovern adds.
Saturday Wedding Weekend Activities
On the day of the wedding, your only responsibility is the wedding itself. However, Rothweiler suggests, "We provide ideas for guests such as going to the spa or golfing and give them all of the information they need to create their own booking."
Sunday Wedding Weekend Activities
"For the day following the wedding day, the focus should be on serving your guests. A leisurely brunch, spa amenities, yoga. Your guests have just partied hard and they need to recover," McGovern says.
Think of this as the wedding recovery day. You can send people off with a simple brunch, or give everyone the opportunity to come together to keep the party going and debrief on the weekend. From booking a pontoon boat to throwing a barbecue, think about something that's casual and low-key. Your guests want to spend time together, but they probably don't want to get all dolled up again.
