Golden hour in Ireland, month by month, and what it means for your day

Golden hour is the last hour or so before sunset, when the sun is low, the light turns warm and soft, and everything from a stone wall to a linen suit looks better than it has any right to. Every wedding photographer and videographer in the country is quietly planning their day around it. Very few couples are, because nobody hands them the numbers. So here are the numbers.

In June the best light of the day arrives after the speeches. In December it arrives as your ceremony ends. Neither is a problem if you know.

Find golden hour for your wedding date

The year at a glance

Here is the whole year in one picture, for Dublin. Each bar is a month, and the gold at the top is golden hour, drawn to its real length.

Does golden hour last longer in winter?

Yes, and by more than most people expect. In Dublin, golden hour lasts 68 minutes in the week before Christmas and just 45 in late March and late September. Midsummer sits in between at 58. So the year has two long golden hours, a big one in winter and a smaller one in June, and the shortest ones fall around the equinoxes.

It comes down to the angle the sun takes on its way down. Around the equinoxes it drops towards the horizon at its steepest and falls through those last six degrees quickly. In December it never climbs higher than about 13 degrees over Dublin all day, so it hangs low for hours and slides into sunset at a shallow angle. In June it sets far round in the north-west, at a slant again, which is why midsummer gets a second, smaller peak.

Where you are matters too. The further north, the longer it lasts: in December, golden hour runs to 74 minutes in Donegal and 63 in Cork.

After sunset: blue hour

The light doesn't stop at sunset. For the next 35 to 55 minutes, until the sun is six degrees below the horizon, the sky goes soft and blue and every lamp and candle starts to glow. Filmmakers and photographers call it blue hour. It's when a country house with every window lit looks its best, and it lasts longest in summer, close to an hour, which is why a walk outside after the first dance can be so lovely.

The table

What it means, season by season

April to September: it happens during dinner, or just after

Sunset is somewhere between seven and ten, so golden hour arrives during dinner, or just as it ends, in April and September, and in the hour after the speeches from May to August, just as the band sets up. The best light of the whole day arrives when you are sitting down. The fix is the ten-minute escape: tell your coordinator in advance, and when we catch your eye, slip out with us for ten minutes. At Tankardstown we do it almost every time, and it has produced some of the footage we are proudest of. Your guests will barely notice you've gone, and you'll have the one portrait session of the day that nobody was waiting for.

Mid-November to January: it happens as the ceremony ends

Sunset falls between four and five, and in the darkest weeks golden hour starts at about three, just as a two o'clock ceremony lets out. Married at the venue, you walk straight out into it. With a drive from the church, most of it goes on the road. We have written a whole piece on the winter light because it changes the shape of the day, but the short version is: either move the ceremony earlier, see each other before it, or embrace the dark. All three work. Ignoring it doesn't.

February: it happens at exactly the right time

The quiet sweet spot of the Irish wedding year. Sunset moves from five to six across the month, so golden hour lands in the drinks reception, right when the portraits would happen anyway. You don't need to plan anything. The light comes to you. The same thing happens in the first fortnight after the clocks go back at the end of October, which is quietly why late autumn weddings look so good on film.

March and October: it depends on the date

The clocks change at the end of both months, and sunset jumps by an hour overnight. In early March golden hour sits at the end of the drinks reception; from the last weekend of March it moves into dinner. October runs the other way: golden hour sits around the start of dinner for most of the month, then drops back into the drinks reception once the clocks go back. The month matters less than the actual date, so put yours into the finder.

How to use this

• Put your date into the finder, and write golden hour on the timeline. That's the portrait slot. Everything else in the afternoon should bend around it rather than the other way round.
• Summer couples: plan the escape. Ten minutes, agreed in advance with the coordinator and the band. It's the best-value ten minutes of the day.
• Winter couples: read the winter piece. Then decide between an earlier ceremony and a first look. One of them is right for you.
• Don't forget blue hour. The half hour after sunset is softer still, and a house lit up against a deep blue sky is one of the loveliest shots of the day. Five minutes outside is all it takes.
• Cloudy days still have a golden hour. The light goes warm and soft even through cloud, and then it goes. The timing holds. Only the colour changes.

Nobody should plan a wedding around the sun. Knowing where it will be is different: it costs nothing, and the hour it buys you is the best-looking hour of your film.