If you’re like most couples, you hope for perfect weather on your wedding day but sometimes Mother Nature has a mind of her own.
When we think of bad weather on your wedding day, most of us think of rain.
While that can definitely be annoying and throw your outdoor wedding for a loop, there are many more weather events that can have a serious effect on your wedding day.
Many people have thought through what to do if it rains on your wedding day, but depending on the time of year or in what part of the world you get married, you might need to ask a few other questions…
What do I do if it snows on my wedding day?
What do I do if there’s a tornado on my wedding day?
What do I do if there’s a hurricane on my wedding day?
What do you do when bad weather on your wedding day makes a change of plans necessary?
It’s best to prepare for all sorts of weather issues that could come your way.
Below, we’ve got you covered with 6 must-have wedding tips on how to prepare for bad weather on your wedding day.
AND, we’ve included two real wedding stories from couples who actually had to make last-minute changes to their weddings due to bad weather.
Here are 6 tips on how to prepare for bad weather on your wedding day
1. Have a “Plan B” ahead of time
Always have a backup plan ahead of time. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but at least know that if lightning strikes your wedding day, you’ll at least still walk away married, lol.
2. Pick a venue with plenty of indoor space
This way your guests will have somewhere to scurry off to if they want to get out of the rain or if they need to escape a thunderstorm.
This is crucial for older guests who want to see you married, but can’t afford to get pneumonia. Yikes!
3. Choose a venue with a “Rain Plan”
If you have your heart set on an outdoor venue make sure you ask them if they have a “Rain Plan”.
If they have one, they’ll be able to lay it out for you in detail.
Some venues don’t have a rain plan and don’t provide tents or outdoor heaters, which can really suck if you don’t know this ahead of time and they’re needed last-minute.
If they don’t have a rain plan, ask them for advice on where to get tents and heaters. They probably know a company nearby that most of their couples use or, even better, they have a partnership with a company to provide those for you at a discounted rate.
4. Be prepared for dangerous weather
Keep a close eye out for dangerous weather that might happen in your part of the world during your wedding season. It’s easy to overlook this.
For instance, Hurricane Season runs from June until the end of November for the Atlantic Ocean, which falls smack dab on top of wedding season in the United States.
So, if you’re planning on getting married on the East Coast, you’ll need to be prepared for hurricanes.
If the weather in your part of the world is so bad that it becomes dangerous for you and your guests to travel to your wedding, you may have to consider rescheduling.
But how do you quickly communicate this will hundreds of guests last-minute?
5. Communicate last-minute changes to your wedding weekend
Need to communicate a last-minute change to hundreds of guests to make sure everyone stays in the loop and stays out of harm’s way?
- Did the wedding location change?
- Did the wedding time change?
- Are certain streets closed on the way to your wedding venue?
- Should your guests prepare for an unexpected cold front?
- Is a hurricane threatening your wedding weekend and all your plans are now tentative?
To help with this wedding day stress, we recommend WedTexts.
With the help of WedTexts, you can communicate live updates to all of your guests at the same time.
Keeping your guests up to date on the wedding weekend timeline will keep your guests happy, engaged, and safe.
WedTexts enhances the guest experience and makes weddings fun to attend, even if there’s bad weather on your wedding day.
6. “Keep Calm and Carry On”
And lastly, while we DO NOT promote putting yourself or your guests in harm’s way, you can “Keep Calm and Carry On” as the Brits say, and stick to your wedding plans come hell or high water… literally.
Know that your wedding day will be special and memorable even if the crappy weather on your wedding day tries to ruin everything.
If you’ve read our blog before, you should already know that we don’t believe in just telling you what to think.
Instead, take a look at two real weddings that ran into major wedding day weather.
Real weddings with less-than-perfect wedding day weather
Stephanie and Matthew – A Winter Wonderland Wedding
It was more intimate than expected, and it made it even more special
Stephanie Schneider
Sure, a winter wonderland wedding sounds SUPER romantic.
But a winter BLIZZARD wedding? Not so much…
Stephanie and Matthew were all set to get married in Manhattan on January 23rd.
Except for the teeny tiny detail that this was the same time the blizzard (Winter Storm Jonas) was hitting the East Coast.
And New York State imposed a travel ban for part of the weekend.
Honestly, that would have been enough for me to reschedule if it was my wedding.
Their wedding event space, Battery Gardens, even offered to reschedule their wedding for the following day, Sunday the 24th.
But with all the planning and preparation that went into their wedding day, Stephanie and Matthew decided to move forward as planned.
“So they sent a text message to their 186 would-be guests: ‘Wedding still on! Please come if you can.'”
And man did they pull through.
Vendors showed up as ordered, they found an officiant at the last minute, and Stephanie’s hairstylist even slept in her salon the night before to make sure she would be available.
Check out their full story here.
Blair’s Story – A Thousand-Year Flood
Remember what I said earlier about hell or high water?
Well, Blair can tell you all about that.
Due to a thousand-year flood, she and her fiance had to re-plan their entire wedding in 2 days!
Lucky for them, WedTexts allowed them to easily update all their guests of the new event details with scheduled mass text messages.
WedTexts literally saved us on our wedding weekend. Not only did we have a new ceremony location, but also a new reception location, and a new rehearsal location.
We essentially had to plan an entirely new wedding in two short days! We also had people coming from all over…
There was no way I could even fathom doing all of that and calling all of those people. Especially while my heart was breaking over all of the major changes in my wedding.
My original ceremony location was literally flooded!
Don’t let bad weather on your wedding day ruin your special day
A word that comes up all the time at WedTexts is Murphy’s Law. What can go wrong, will.
If it’s not wedding day weather throwing you for a loop, it could be something else.
We can never know for sure if your wedding plans will go off without a hitch, so if you’re planning a wedding…sign up for WedTexts.
Your guests will thank you.
You can upload unlimited guests and send unlimited text messages and with our Easy-Fill Templates© you can have the most commonly sent text messages set up in under 5 minutes!
And best of all, it’s FREE to use for your wedding party of up to 15 people!
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