Wedding SDE Timeline: How to Shoot and Edit an SDE in 4 Hours

19 October 2026 · SDE Studio

Every wedding SDE runs on the same hard deadline: the moment the host says "and now, a video of today." Everything you shoot and cut has to fit before that cue, and at many Filipino weddings the gap between the start of the church ceremony and the reveal at the reception is about four hours. That sounds like a lot until you subtract the ceremony itself, the travel, the photos and the export.

This is a practical, hour-by-hour timeline for hitting that window. If you are new to the format, start with our guide to what a Same Day Edit is, then come back here for the workflow.

Work backwards from the reveal, not forwards from the ceremony

The single most useful habit on an SDE day is to plan from the end. Get the reception program from the coordinator a week before and find out:

• When the SDE is cued. Usually after the couple's entrance and once dinner has started, but every program is different.
• What it plays from. Your laptop over HDMI, a USB stick in the venue's player, or the lights-and-sounds supplier's machine. Each one changes your export and handoff.
• How far the church is from the venue. Thirty minutes in traffic is thirty minutes your editor is either working in a moving car or not working at all.

Then set your own deadline: picture lock about 45 minutes before the cue. That buffer covers the export, a test play on the venue screen, and the program running early, which happens more often than you'd think.

The night before: prep that saves an hour on the day

Most of an SDE's speed comes from decisions you make before anyone puts on a barong.

1. Lock the song with the couple. Mark the beats, the build and the drop. Know which part of the song the vows and the kiss will land on.
2. Build a project template. Opening title, end card with names and date, music already on the timeline, and empty sections labelled Prep / Arrival / Aisle / Vows & Rites / Exit / Couple.
3. Save and test your export settings for the venue's screen. Don't work out the resolution while the coordinator is waving at you.
4. Agree on roles and card handoffs. Who shoots what, who carries cards to the editor, and when.
5. Charge everything and format the cards after checking that the last event's footage is backed up twice.

The hour-by-hour timeline

This assumes a church ceremony of about an hour, a team of at least one shooter and one dedicated on-site editor, and the reveal roughly four hours after the ceremony starts. Stretch or squeeze the blocks to fit your actual program.

Before the ceremony: get a head start

The editor's first job is to make sure the morning footage is already a finished section before the bride reaches the church. Pull the prep cards as soon as the shooters move to the church, back them up, and cut the opening: details, getting ready, the parents, the trip out the door. By the time the processional starts, the first 60 to 90 seconds of the SDE should be done.

Hour 1: the ceremony

For shooters, this is the hour the whole SDE hangs on. In a Filipino Catholic wedding, plan your angles for:

• The processional, including the entourage, the parents, and the groom's face as the doors open.
• The vows and the exchange of rings. Capture clean audio; one sentence of the vows is often the emotional centre of the edit.
• The arrhae, the coins given by the groom to the bride as a pledge of provision.
• The veil and cord placed by the secondary sponsors. Shoot it wide and tight; it's very visual and families love seeing it.
• The kiss and the presentation of the couple.

Check with the parish beforehand on where you may stand; rules on movement and lights differ from church to church. Meanwhile the editor is finishing the prep section and leaving placeholders where ceremony shots will go.

Hours 2–3: the assembly

As soon as the ceremony cards arrive, ingest and back up first, then edit. Do one fast selects pass rather than watching everything: mark the best take of each key moment and move on. You are looking for emotion and clarity, not every angle.

Lay the ceremony section to the music you prepared. Put the vows and the kiss on the build you marked the night before, cut on the beat, and keep the structure simple: aisle, vows and rites, kiss, exit. Guests at a reception want to recognise the day, not decode a clever timeline.

This is where an editor built for the format helps. SDE Studio Desktop lets you drag footage straight from the card or folder onto the timeline, trim, split and reorder with ripple, and cut to the beat, which is exactly the work of this hour.

Hour 3: colour and sound

Don't grade for a look; grade for consistency. Church interiors are often warm and dim, outdoor exits are bright and cool, and two different camera bodies rarely match out of the box. Match your cameras first, then fix the worst shots. If a shot still looks wrong after a minute, replace it.

For audio, choose one or two short moments, like a line from the vows or a laugh from the crowd, and duck the music under them. Those few seconds of real sound make the room go quiet.

The last 45 minutes: lock, export, test

1. Picture lock. Stop adding shots. A tight four-minute SDE beats an unfinished six-minute one.
2. Titles and end card. Names, date, and spelling checked by someone else.
3. Export with the preset you tested. SDE Studio Desktop has a one-click export tuned for projector and big-screen playback, which takes one decision off the table.
4. Test play on the actual screen with the lights-and-sounds team, including audio levels.
5. Make a second copy on a USB stick in case the first playback fails.

Get more angles without more shooters

A small team can't be everywhere. Guests are already filming the procession, the lola crying in the third pew and the barkada at their table. With SDE Studio One, guests join the event from a QR code or link with no account hoops, capture their own angle, and the app consolidates everyone's clips into one SDE video. Put the QR on the tables and at the church entrance, then check what guests captured during the assembly hour.

Where SDE teams usually lose time

• Waiting on cards. Agree on handoff points in advance: after preps, after the ceremony, after portraits.
• Choosing music on the day. Never. Lock it the week before.
• Watching every clip. Make selects fast and trust your shot list.
• Over-grading. Consistency, not perfection.
• Skipping the test play. A file that stutters on the venue's player ruins four hours of work.
• Unbacked-up cards. Speed is when footage gets lost. Copy to two drives before you format anything.

The bottom line

Four hours is enough for a strong wedding SDE if most of the decisions were made before the day: the song, the structure, the export, and who hands cards to whom. On the day, cut the prep while the ceremony runs, assemble the ceremony while the couple is having portraits, and lock picture 45 minutes before the cue. Do that every time and the deadline stops feeling like a gamble.