Brisbane's earliest sunset is about 5:01 pm on 9 June. Its latest is about 6:49 pm on 11 January. That is a swing of one hour and forty-eight minutes, and it happens without a single clock change.
Queensland does not observe daylight saving. We sit on AEST, UTC+10, for all twelve months. So a timeline borrowed from a Sydney or Melbourne wedding in December will be a full hour wrong here, and every year somebody finds that out on the day.
The table
Times are for the middle of each month, rounded to the nearest five minutes. Treat them as indicative. Check your specific date, and add ten to fifteen minutes of margin either side.
| Month | Sunset | Good light begins | Latest ceremony start | Dusk exteriors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 6:45 pm | 6:05 pm | 4:30 pm | 6:35 – 7:10 pm |
| February | 6:30 pm | 5:50 pm | 4:15 pm | 6:20 – 6:55 pm |
| March | 6:00 pm | 5:20 pm | 3:45 pm | 5:50 – 6:25 pm |
| April | 5:25 pm | 4:45 pm | 3:10 pm | 5:15 – 5:50 pm |
| May | 5:05 pm | 4:25 pm | 2:50 pm | 4:55 – 5:30 pm |
| June | 5:00 pm | 4:20 pm | 2:45 pm | 4:50 – 5:25 pm |
| July | 5:15 pm | 4:35 pm | 3:00 pm | 5:05 – 5:40 pm |
| August | 5:30 pm | 4:50 pm | 3:15 pm | 5:20 – 5:55 pm |
| September | 5:45 pm | 5:05 pm | 3:30 pm | 5:35 – 6:10 pm |
| October | 6:00 pm | 5:20 pm | 3:45 pm | 5:50 – 6:25 pm |
| November | 6:20 pm | 5:40 pm | 4:05 pm | 6:10 – 6:45 pm |
| December | 6:45 pm | 6:05 pm | 4:30 pm | 6:35 – 7:10 pm |
How the three columns are built
Good light begins is forty minutes before sunset. That is when the sun is low enough to stop carving hard shadows across faces and starts working as a rim light instead. It runs a few minutes longer near the solstices than near the equinoxes, which is not worth planning around.
Latest ceremony start is sunset minus two hours fifteen. It assumes a thirty-minute ceremony, forty-five minutes of congratulations and family groups, and a short walk to the portrait location. If your groups list runs past twenty combinations, or the portraits are a drive away, take another thirty minutes off.
Dusk exteriors is the window for property and venue work: ten minutes before sunset to twenty-five after. Before it, the sky overpowers the interior lights. After it, the sky goes black and the building floats in nothing. The usable part is about thirty-five minutes and it does not wait.
Three things the table will not tell you
Buildings and hills take the sun before the horizon does. A CBD garden can be in shadow forty minutes before the time in that first column. Scout the actual spot at the actual hour, or ask someone who has.
Cloud is not the enemy people assume. Thin high cloud at sunset extends usable light and adds colour. A solid grey bank kills it early, but in the wet season, roughly November to March, that bank is often a storm that clears and hands back twenty extraordinary minutes at the end.
And the numbers above are astronomical, not practical. On a humid February evening with haze on the horizon, the last honest light is often ten minutes earlier than the table says. Build the margin in.
Wedding coverage packages that fit around these windows start at $698 and are listed on the pricing page.
