Repeat after me: Neither rain, nor sleet, nor the darkness of night will prevent me from my appointed wedding.
Planning a wedding is one of the most stressful undertakings you can survive. A million details should seem to fall effortlessly into place. There has to be a point where one finally admits defeat and accepts whatever fate throws at it, right? After all, you can’t control everything. It’s not like you can control the weather.
Not so fast.
You may not be able to control the weather on your wedding day yet, but you can take a great number of precautions to make sure your guests don’t even realize the weather was a concern to you to begin with.
It is not enough to know in what weather and what time of year you are getting married. Surprise storms appear all the time. In fact, I have never heard of a predictable storm. Even if you’re not planning an outdoor wedding, it’s still wise to make sure there’s a covered walkway and that your ushers have access to umbrellas. An outdoor summer wedding will require even more planning for the rain. Obviously, make sure that there is enough space in the tent for all your guests, food, gifts and sound equipment and that there are enough umbrellas for everyone. A major common oversight is walking space between key areas. If the wedding is held outdoors and a rain storm is approaching, the ground will quickly turn into a mudslide. Rugs can save both sprained ankles and stained dresses. Keep in mind that if the storm gets worse, you’ll need a place for your guests to hide inside until the clouds lift.
But you never have to worry about such things: you won’t have a summer wedding, and besides, yours will be held indoors. Nothing left to fear? Hardly. A freak snowstorm in mid-September can mess up your wedding day more than a rainstorm. Make sure your reception hall or place of worship is equipped with snow shovels and that your trusted ushers (ie day slaves) know how to use them. A bag of coarse salt is an excellent cure for slippery sidewalks, but if you don’t live in an area where it’s common, organic kitty litter will do the trick beautifully. Provides enough traction for walking and cleans up well.
You simply cannot plan for every weather event on your wedding day. The day will turn out to be whatever: rain, snow, hail, sun, thunder and all. The trick is to make it seem like you knew what was going to happen all along and were prepared for it. Then laugh at how little control you really had years later.
