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Golden hour calculator
Sunset, both golden hours and the latest a ceremony can start if the portraits are happening afterwards — for a date and a place, on the venue's own clock.
Questions we are asked about this
- What time is golden hour at my wedding venue?
- It begins when the sun drops to six degrees above the horizon and ends at sunset, which in the continental United States is between about 30 and 45 minutes depending on the season and how far north you are. Enter your venue and date above for the exact window on your own clock.
- How late can the ceremony start if we are not doing a first look?
- About two hours before sunset. Family formals, wedding party and couple portraits take roughly eighty minutes after a thirty-minute ceremony and fifteen minutes of hellos — so a ceremony starting later than that finishes its photographs in the dark. The calculator states the exact time for your date.
- How much does sunset move across the year?
- In the southern United States, about an hour and a half between midsummer and midwinter; further north, more than two hours. It is the reason a timeline that worked for a June wedding cannot be reused in October without moving everything.
What this assumes
- Golden hour here is the evening window when the sun is between six degrees above the horizon and the horizon itself — the definition suncalc uses and the one photographers mean. Some people call the twenty minutes after sunset golden too; that is blue hour, and it is a different light.
- Times are on the venue's own clock, with daylight saving applied for the date you asked about rather than for today.
- A city gives you the coordinates of the metro centre. A venue forty minutes out of town differs by under a minute of sunset — real, and smaller than the difference a ridge line or a tree canopy makes. If it matters, paste the venue's own coordinates.