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.

The table gives the sunset time in Dublin for the middle of each month, the time it is properly dark, and the sunset in Galway for anyone marrying in the west. The golden light begins roughly an hour before sunset, so the portrait slot is that hour. Times are worked out for the 15th of each month and shift by a minute or two a day, so look up your actual date before you write anything on a timeline.

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

The year at a glance

The table

What it means, season by season

May to August: it happens during dinner

Sunset is between nine and ten, so golden hour runs from about eight, which is dessert, or the speeches, or the gap before the band. 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 during the speeches, 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.

September and October: it happens at the right time

The sweet spot. Sunset between half six and half seven, so golden hour lands at the end of the drinks reception, exactly when the portraits would naturally happen. You don't need to plan anything. The light comes to you. This, quietly, is why autumn weddings look so good on film.

November to February: it happens during the ceremony

Sunset at four or half four, golden hour from three, which for a two o'clock ceremony is while you're inside. 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.

March and April: it depends on the date

The clocks go forward at the end of March and sunset jumps an hour in a fortnight. A late March wedding has golden hour around five, which is the drinks reception. Mid-April, it's seven, which is dinner. The month matters less than the actual date, so look yours up.

How to use this

• Find your date's sunset, subtract an hour, and write it 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.
• 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.