Event Timeline Buffer
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Nearly every event activity — vendor arrival, guest transitions between spaces, speeches, photo sessions — tends to run slightly longer than scheduled, so a timeline with zero slack compounds small delays into a significantly late finish by the end of the event.

A common approach is adding 10-15% of a segment's planned duration as buffer, with larger absolute buffers (15-30 minutes) around high-variability transitions like guest movement between ceremony and reception spaces, and smaller buffers around fixed-duration items like a scheduled band set.

Concentrating extra buffer before major transitions (guests moving locations, a meal service beginning, or a scheduled speech block) is generally more useful than spreading a small amount evenly across every single timeline item, since transitions are where delays most often accumulate.

Not necessarily — buffer absorbed by earlier segments running under time offsets buffer used by segments running over, so a well-buffered timeline often finishes close to its planned end time despite individual delays, whereas an unbuffered timeline reliably finishes late.

Excess buffer shows up as noticeable dead time guests can feel — long gaps with nothing happening between activities. If early segments consistently finish well under their buffered time with nothing to fill the gap, trim buffer from those specific segments rather than the whole timeline.