Guest weekend itinerary template for a multi-day Indian wedding

For every event: the time guests should arrive, the venue with its address, the dress code, whether food is served, and how to get there and back. Put a short header on top with the RSVP link, the hotel block and one person to call all weekend.

Mandap Chat's guest itinerary template makes a point worth copying: the planner may have a 30-column run sheet, but guests should get a short version that reads on a phone. Leave out vendor load-in, the photographer's shot list and the pandit's arrival. Guests need four things per event: when, where, what to wear, and how they get there.

• Time. The time to arrive, not the muhurat. If the pheras start at 4:20 pm and guests must be seated by 4:00 pm, the itinerary says 4:00 pm.
• Venue. Name, full address, which entrance, and where to park. A hotel with three ballrooms needs the room name.
• Dress code. Colours if you have a theme, plus the practical note: flats on grass, clothes that can take turmeric, a head covering at a gurdwara.
• Transport. Shuttle departure and return times, or valet and parking. Note the last ride back.
• Food. One line: snacks, lunch, or a full dinner and when it starts. Elders and guests with kids plan around it.

A common three-day shape is a welcome lunch and the mehndi on day one, a morning haldi and the sangeet on day two, and the baraat, the ceremony and the reception on day three. Here is that shape as a guest would see it, for a household invited to everything.

This order is one of several. ShaadiPath's three-day schedule puts haldi and mehndi on day one and the sangeet on day two, and Zivaara Studio's US timeline describes mehndi (or mehndi and haldi) on day one, sangeet on day two and the ceremony and reception on day three. Sikh weekends often center on a morning Anand Karaj, and Pakistani weekends on mehndi, nikah and walima. The format of the itinerary stays the same. For choosing the order itself, see Indian wedding events in order.

The same five lines every time (arrival time, venue, dress code, food and transport), plus the one thing that is particular to that event. These are the notes guests ask about most.

Welcome lunch or dinner

Keep it loose: a window rather than a start time, and the room or restaurant. Say whether it is hosted, so a cousin does not arrive having eaten. If people are still landing, say they can drop in late.

Mehndi

Give an end time as well as a start, so guests know how long to plan for. Say whether there will be artists for guests and roughly how long the wait is. Henna stains, so flats and cotton beat silk and suede.

Haldi

Say who it is for. A haldi is often immediate family and close friends, and the itinerary is where a guest learns whether they are expected. Warn about turmeric: yellow or white clothes they will not wear again, and a towel if it is outdoors.

Sangeet

List three times: doors, the first performance and dinner. If guests are performing, tell them the rehearsal or sound-check time separately, not on the main itinerary. Add the last shuttle.

Baraat

The baraat needs a meeting point and a leave time, not just "afternoon." Tell the groom's side and friends joining the procession where to gather; tell everyone else to go straight to the venue and when to be seated. If the venue has said where cars can stop, put that in too.

Wedding ceremony

Give a seated-by time, how long the ceremony runs (60 to 90 minutes is common in a US hall), and the house rules: shoes off near the mandap, head coverings at a gurdwara, no flash during the pheras. If lunch or snacks follow, say when.

Reception

Doors, the couple's entrance, dinner and the last song. Reception-only guests read this line and nothing else, so it needs the full address and parking even if everyone else has been at the venue since 3 pm.

The hour-by-hour version behind these lines, from makeup call to load-out, is the Indian wedding day timeline.

No. Each household should see only the events it is invited to. A reception-only colleague who reads the haldi address will either show up or feel left out, and both are avoidable.

That is the same per-festivity guest list you use for RSVPs and caterer counts. Our guide to RSVPs for a multi-event wedding works through the invite matrix, and the wedding hotel block guide turns the same list into rooms per night.

Replace the brackets, delete the events a household is not invited to, and keep it to one screen per day.

Anaya & Rohan's wedding weekend
Edison, NJ

RSVP (your private link): [link]
Hotel block: [hotel], book by [date] with code [code]
Questions all weekend: [name], [phone]

DAY 1, [date]
Welcome lunch
  Arrive: 12:30 pm
  Where: [hotel restaurant], [address]
  Wear: smart casual
  Getting there: walk down from the lobby

Mehndi
  Arrive: 4:00 pm (ends about 7:30 pm)
  Where: [venue], [address], parking at [lot]
  Wear: bright colours, flats; henna stains, so skip silk
  Getting there: shuttle from the lobby at 3:40 pm

DAY 2, [date]
Haldi (family and close friends)
  Arrive: 10:00 am (ends 11:30 am)
  Where: [venue]
  Wear: yellow or white you don't mind staining
  Getting there: [details]

Sangeet
  Arrive: 6:00 pm, first performance 6:20 pm, dinner 8:30 pm
  Where: [ballroom], [address]
  Wear: festive Indian or cocktail, shoes you can dance in
  Getting there: shuttles from 5:30 pm, last one back at 11:15 pm

DAY 3, [date]
Baraat (join the groom's side)
  Meet: 3:00 pm in the hotel lobby, leaves 3:15 pm
  Wear: festive Indian, comfortable shoes
Wedding ceremony
  Seated by: 4:00 pm
  Where: [venue], [address]
  Wear: traditional Indian; shoes off at the mandap
Reception
  Doors: 6:45 pm, couple's entrance 7:15 pm, dinner 8:00 pm, last song 10:40 pm
  Where: [hall], [address]
  Wear: formal Indian or Western
  Getting there: last shuttle back at 11:15 pm

Put it in one place guests can always reopen, send each household only its own events, and send one short reminder the week of the wedding. Do not drip it out over four separate messages.

• With the save-the-date: the city, the dates and roughly which days have events, so people can book flights and the hotel block.
• With the invitation or once times are final: the full itinerary. Weddingkart suggests four to six weeks ahead for overseas guests, as one consolidated schedule rather than several messages.
• The week of: a short reminder with anything that changed, the shuttle times and the contact person.
• For elders: a printed card or a large-type PDF, and a family member who walks them through it.

Keep one source of truth. Mandap Chat makes the same point: if a shuttle time changes, update the itinerary and the website first, then tell people, so the forwarded screenshots in the family group are not the only copy. Our best wedding website for multiple events comparison covers which sites can show each guest only their events.

In PlanMe the wedding is one event made of festivities. Each festivity (welcome lunch, mehndi, haldi, sangeet, the ceremony, the reception) has its own date, venue, itinerary and dress code, and each guest on the one guest list is invited to just the festivities they are coming to.

• Each household sees only its festivities. Guests get a private RSVP link by email or text, with no login and no app, that lists only the festivities they are invited to, each with its date and time, venue and dress code. Or they can look themselves up on the wedding website and see the same thing.
• The website schedule is the public version. The schedule on the wedding website lists the festivities you choose to show, and every visitor sees the same list. Leave a family-only haldi off it.
• The hour-by-hour itinerary stays with you. The schedule under each festivity is where the run of show for your family, planner and vendors lives.
• Texts go by tag or RSVP status. Email and SMS broadcasts go to everyone or to guests picked by tag or RSVP status, not by festivity. To text only the sangeet guests, tag them "sangeet" and send to that tag.

PlanMe sends by email and SMS. If your family lives in a group chat, paste the private link or the website link there yourself. Hotels, forms for arrival dates, the checklist and the budget sit in the same event; the month-by-month order is on the Indian wedding checklist. PlanMe is free during beta. Read who built it, see pricing, or get in touch.