Austin Wedding Venues and When to Start Your Ceremony, Month by Month

Austin has two wedding seasons, spring and fall, and one problem in between: from June through August the sun sets after 8:30 and the temperature at ceremony time is in the high nineties. The timeline for an Austin wedding is really a negotiation between light and heat, and this post gives you the numbers for both sides.

The light in Austin

Computed for the 15th of each month in 2027. Dripping Springs and the western venues are a minute or two later.

Two things Texas does differently from the Northeast. Daylight swings less across the year, only four hours between June and December against six in New England, so a winter Austin wedding is far more workable than a winter Boston one. And the March jump is the clocks: a 3:34 February ceremony becomes a 4:54 March ceremony overnight.

The summer problem

A June ceremony at 5:49 puts guests in direct sun at the hottest hour of the day. There are three ways out.

1. Start at 6:30 or 7:00 anyway. Portraits happen right at sunset, family formals are quick, and the reception runs late. This is what most Austin couples do, and it works if the ceremony site has shade for guests.
2. Move the ceremony indoors or under cover and step out at 8:00 for a fifteen-minute portrait walk in the last light.
3. Pick October. A 4:15 ceremony, 80 degrees, and the best light of the year. This is why October Saturdays in the Hill Country book out eighteen months ahead.

The venues

Ma Maison is the one couples name first, a French-styled estate on the Dripping Springs side with a real lawn and a real sunset. Barr Mansion is a historic house and organic farm in the north of the city, and its ballroom solves the summer problem outright. Allan House is the downtown choice, a Victorian house with a garden, and one of the few places where you can have a garden ceremony and walk to a hotel. Ranch Austin, with the highest rating on the list, is a working ranch in the south of the city.

The Hill Country venues further west, Dripping Springs to Fredericksburg, are in their own post with the mileage from the Capitol.

What we would do

For October: ceremony at 4:15, family formals at the site, and a walk into the field at 6:30. For a summer wedding: shade or indoors for the ceremony at 6:30, a first look at 4:30 in the air conditioning, and the two of you outside alone at 8:00 for the last fifteen minutes of light. For December: a 2:45 ceremony sounds early until you see the portraits at five. The full sunset table lives on our Austin page, and every venue above has its own page with our published pricing, which is the same at all of them.

Elizabeth Scott is an independent wedding photography and film studio. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by any venue named here; venue names identify where couples marry. Ratings and review counts are Google's as of our last check and will change. Sunset and golden-hour times are computed for the 15th of each month in 2027; an outdoor ceremony in open shade can run 20 to 30 minutes later than the start times we suggest.