As someone who planned to have an outdoor ceremony and then had to move it inside when it started raining 30 minutes before we were about to begin my BIGGEST piece of advice for anyone planning an outdoor wedding and/or reception (or any party for that matter) is that you MUST have a back-up plan. For the love of your guests and your own sanity you have to account for mother nature who has a tendency to be a nasty bitch at times. I don't care if you live in San Diego where it's 75 degrees and sunny 360 days out of the year, if your outdoor wedding falls on one of those 5 days where it rains you're shit outta luck.
Now even though rain was what mother nature decided to toss my way you also need to account for either really hot or really cold temps, this pretty much goes for any season you get married in. Yes the months of May, June, Sept. and Oct typically have very pleasant temperatures (which is why they are such popular wedding months) but it's not that unusual for the temp to swing dramatically in either direction during those months and you need to be prepared.
A lot of people will plan ahead and have bottles of water or fans available for those hot summer days or have wraps and space heaters ready for the days that are a bit chilly and those are fine but unless you want all your guests huddling under umbrellas you can't disregard the possibility of rain. I don't know many people that like to sit out in the rain while wearing their Sunday best even if it is under an umbrella.
So please please please ladies, have a Plan B or if you want to be really anal like me even have a Plan C (we ended up having to use Plan C at my wedding). I know you may have dreamed of the perfect outdoor wedding since you were 5 years old but shit happens and the weather is the one thing you cannot control on your wedding day. Believe me you don't want the main memory that your guests have of your wedding to be how uncomfortable they were because of the weather.
For those that have had or are planning outdoor weddings did you have a backup plan?
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Luckily I am not a h uge outdoor fan soooo I didn;t have to worry abou that. We did have to account for snow though
We actually were supposed to have cocktail hour outside but it moved in because of rain. We were lucky no one booked the adjoining room so we had a nice banquet hall for our cocktail hour and then the main room for the reception.
I did go to one wedding where it was FREEZING and there wasn't enough room for indoor seating so a bunch of us ended up outside. It was room for 50 and like 150 people showed up. I've never been more miserable at a wedding.
I appreciate a good plan B.
SAra
http://www.momentsofelegance.com
This is such important advice, and something we're talked about extensively in my wedding coordination program. From rain and snow, to heat and cold, you never know what nature will do, so don't let it ruin your day by being unprepared!
So glad you found my blog! Yours is precious!
Oh you bet we had a backup plan. Only our ceremony was going to be outside so our plan was that if it rained the ceremony would be at our reception site, which was indoors.
It actually did rain the day of but managed to stop shortly before the ceremony. I was THRILLED but still glad I had a backup plan just in case.
yes a plan B is always necessary...
in wedding and in life. ha!
We planned an outdoor wedding- reception, ceremony, all of it.
Day of, it was chilly with scatter rain showers. We ended up with the ceremony outside in the garden (we got married at an old mansion) and the reception (food portion) inside, with the dance on the huge front porch.
Our plan B turned out to be the best plan- the pictures from the porch were just to-die-for and we would have missed out on that had we been outside! Plan B's are ALWAYS necessary for outside weddings, but sometimes, they can turn out to be the best plan. I was so disappointed at first, but I'm so happy with how it all turned out now.
We sort of had a back up plan. We had an outdoor ceremony with an indoor reception in April. Everyone kept telling me 'April Showers...' blah blah blah. Here in So Cal, it rarely rains in April which is strange. The weather was GORGEOUS on our day...exactly what I wanted it to be. The venue coordinator told us they had never had an April wedding rained out but if it did rain, we could either wait it out for a patch of dryness to have the ceremony (because it typically doesn't rain for very long) or we could put a huge EXPENSIVE tent up over the ceremony area or just have the ceremony on the dance floor in the reception room with guests seated at their dining tables. No way did I want the guests at dining tables during our ceremony but at least we knew we could have opted for a tent if we needed it. Smart to have something available or knowledge of what to do just in case.
We had an outdoor wedding at my parents farm and were luckily blessed with good weather. Our plan B was a tent (in case of small thunderstorms) and our plan C was a fire hall in the county...luckily, all worked out and we were able to work only with plan A!
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