Processional Timing

Do a mini rehersal with ur friends and have them walk down the street or something and see how long it takes them like time it. but yeah its fine to do two songs. remember some people walk fast too

We had 1 song for everybody to walk down the aisle to (included grandma & brother, fiance with his parents, our entire bridal party of 6).

then I walked down to a separate song.

We had our friend do our ceremony music on her guitar. She didn't get through either song in full. probably cut out one whole verse.

Edit: I should mention that all 6 bridal party members walked down separately, not in pairs.

I would contact your venue and see if you can get in to time how long it takes you to walk down the aisle. If you can't get into the venue, ask the length and just measure it at home and see how long it would take. Then I would add how many people would be walking down and go from there. Our processional will just have my bridesmaids with the groomsmen and then myself and my father. My fiance decided that he was just going to wait at the front of the church and my FMIL will be seated with the rest of the guests, which she actually preferred. We didn't want the processional to be long to avoid having to loop songs or pick more than one.

Ours is about 100 feet. When I visited I asked the length of it. Then walked 10 feet and timed it. Calculate those 10 feet by the amount of the length, you'll get a pretty good estimate. Ask the elderly to walk 10 feet and calculate them (they walk slower lol) . Once you have the minutes, see.how many songs you'll need. There are apps that helps fade out and fade it and collage the songs. (I used super sound)
We'll have 3 songs. Groomsmen , 2 ring bearer and FH enters on piano/violin of can't stop falling in love with you, our parents will enter on a cello version of "thousand years " BM on the wedding march. 2 flower girls enters on beauty and the beast and I'm entering on Ave Maria. I ended up merging the BM to the FG by fading out and fading in (but we ended up with a sound tech assistant)
Best of luck, hope this helps, .. timeline and coordination are stressful. You got this!

I think maybe 1 song for everyone else, and then maybe you can have your own song?


We have a small bridal party but it doubles because of the kids involved! lolThe first song (Once In A Lifetime by Landon Austin) is for the guys basically. Our officiant (woman but she's the very first so it's ok) will enter, then our groomsman (my brother), then the Best Man (FH's best friend), then the 4 little boys (our nephews, 1 ring bearer and 3 security lol), then my FH either walking alone or possibly with my grandma. I have to edit the song to be a touch shorter but it's goodThe second song (Can't Help Falling In Love by Kina Grannis) is for the ladies. My bridesmaid (my sister in law) is first, the my MOH (best friend), then the 2 flower girls (my nieces), then my mom and I. And it fits the whole song perfectly.
Our walk isn't very long, but I gotta be honest, I'm not too worried about the guests getting bored. They'll be anticipating seeing you, and its about you and your fiancé, so do what feels the best for you. If they get bored, they'll survive lol it's not that long!

We separated it all - by DH and his Mom walked down the aisle to their song (I've Got The World On A String by Frank Sinatra), then the wedding party walked down to their own (First Day Of My Life by Bright Eyes), and then me and my parents walked down to ours (Lover by Taylor Swift). Then for the recessional we all walked away to one song that was set to repeat if it ended before everybody left (Signed, Sealed, Delivered - I'm Yours by Stevie Wonder).

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Since you don't have a sound person running your equipment (I would strongly advise against that - try to find a tech-savvy friend if you can), what i would do is:

1) Pick different songs for each grouping, and trim the audio file. Cutting it after the first chorus is usually a good mark, allowing most songs to run a minute-ish. If that is too long, you can use only the chorus. In your song's case, it's roughly 35 seconds. You can trim mp3s and add fades without any software using mp3cut.net/

So make one song for each pair of bridal party, one for the flower girl and ring bearer, one song for groom and mother, and one song for bride and father.

2) Once you have your songs cut, send them to your party so they can listen to it and know how long they have to walk. If they're still at the door by the time the chorus rolled around, they'll need to dart towards the front lol

3) Load the songs into a playlist on a laptop and plug into your sound equipment. The tech guy in me strongly advise having someone run your tracks so nothing random happens without someone looking out for it. But if you absolutely can't have someone, you can set your media player (iTunes, windows media player etc) to make a playlist and automatically play next track in order.

Even if you only have a 20 minute rehearsal on the day of, you should try practicing this. Once you hear it run through once, it should be fairly easy.

4) Each group walks out only when THEIR SONG starts playing. Don't start going until it's their song, even if the previous group gets up before it ends. Since the song fades out on it's own fairly early, there's no awkward abrupt stop and if anyone gets to the front too quickly, it won't be long before it fades out. Repeat for each group.

Pro tip: make sure wherever the procession is waiting they can hear the music from inside the room. The wedding march replayed THREE TIMES for my sister in law because she couldn't hear her cue and sent the groom in a mini panic attack on the day of their wedding hahaha. If they're waiting in a spot where they can't hear what's in the ceremony room, they'll need someone to cue physically them.

Using this method, your procession walk should last no more than 6 minutes max, and with the different songs playing in such quick succession, even those with the most major ADHD shouldn't be bored.

Bonus Pro tip for anyone using Spotify to build their playlist - make sure you get a premium account so the ads don't start playing while you walk down the aisle!

Hope this helps!

You could take the song and divide it by the number of people walking to see how much space between people or pairs you can have. For example if the song is 4 minutes and 8 people walk down they each get 30 seconds.


I would also reach out to the venue and see what other couples have done. They might know how long it takes to walk the aisle, or even let you and a few stand-ins for your party come and practice to see how the timing will work.

Create a list of songs that you like to play for each 3 entrances

1. Wedding/Bridal party (BMs, GM, flowerer girls and ring bearer)

2. Groom/Mother

3. Bride/Father

Knowing the songs selected, stop each at each point for the music to change to follow through the walk down as timed. It will be nice and different to know your guests are there for you and your FH starting your new life together.

I had chosen 2 songs to play though one was played as enough for the walk down with my mother and hubby/aunt.

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Oh, I didn't know that! Thanks!

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I think there's a setting on spotify that will do it for you too

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We aren't having a DJ, we're just doing renting sound equipment and doing a spotify playlist. So unfortunately having someone fade it out nicely isn't really an option for us.

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You wouldn't have to stand and wait out your song if you went with your own - if you have a DJ doing you music for you, they'll fade it out appropriately

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No, our processional song is the acoustic version of "this is it" by Scotty Mcreery, so not instrumental.

I like the idea of not waiting for the first person to get to the end of the aisle before the next starts, that would speed it up a lot. We will probably end up going with two different songs so that there is enough time for everyone, especially our niece and nephews. But I feel like almost 4 minutes for the song I want to walk down the aisle to is way too much time and I'll get up there when the song is only half way done and have to just stand there and wait it out.

Unfortunately a lot of the people involved in our wedding won't be able to come into town until the day before the wedding, so we can't do our rehearsal any earlier.

Is the processional song more of an instrumental song? If so then they're easier to transition over or even repeat themselves without much notice. I'm just having Spotify be my music source for the wedding, and there's a setting that you can go to called "Automix" that makes transitions seem more seamless between songs.

As for the long walk, would it work out if you didn't wait for the people in front to get all the way up to the front before letting the next pair go? Like one couple gets halfway, then the next pair can go kind of thing. Also, more often than not, the bride will have her own song to walk down to, so it's really just your wedding party and parents that have to make to the front within one song. You being the bride, don't want to be the rushed one which is why I think most processionals do have 2 songs anyway.

This is also what the rehearsal is for, so you can get timings right. So maybe instead of doing your rehearsal the night before, try and do it a couple days or a week before so you have time to make changes if you need to. Which is exactly why we're doing ours the week before.