What do we do if it rains? (Top 5 things to do if it rains on your big outdoor wedding)

Wedding booking season is in full swing and I have been busy answering questions about the wedding venue at the farm. Outdoor weddings are so popular right now and the pictures are so beautiful. I can see why brides want that gorgeous outdoor wedding. Since the Cambre House is primarily an outdoor venue the question about rain comes up often. I thought I would share the tips that I share with brides here to help more people. Not every one of these tips are going to work for every bride, but hopefully they will give you some ideas.

1. Rain Delay. Summer storms can often be scattered and fast moving. If it is raining now, it might not be in an hour. If you delay the wedding by an hour you can try to miss the rain. You can have activities for your guests to do while you wait, or they can just relax and chat. This only works if there are short scattered showers.
2. Rain Date. When you send out your invitations give a rain date. If there is rain all day Saturday, the wedding will be moved to Sunday. Make sure you tell guests how you will communicate to them if you are using your rain date.
3. Tents. Rent tents to use at the outdoor location. Tent rentals can be made to any size you need to handle however many guests you have. They provide shelter, not only from rain, but from wind and sun as well. Many tents have walls that will make it practically rain proof. If it does rain on the day, you can just move the service inside the tent, but still have the wedding at the location you picked out.
4. Rain Location. Have the reception at a seperate indoor venue from your outdoor service. In case of rain, you can just move the service to the inside location. Again, make sure to include on your invitations what will happen if it rains and how you will communicate to them the location change.
5. Wing It. Bottom line, you cannot plan for every contingency. Even with indoor venues you are going to have issues that pop up that you cannot plan for. Do your best to plan for the worst, but in the end the wedding will happen and will be all the more memorable for what went wrong.

I listened to a bride and groom tell the story of their wedding where it poured rain on their outdoor wedding all day long, and into the evening. Everything had been moved into the tents they had rented for the wedding, so it wasn’t too disappointing, but it still wasn’t exactly what they had planned. They couldn’t remember how it got started, but some how they ended up doing a mud slip and slide in their gown and tux with the entire bridal party. Talk about a memorable wedding! They couldn’t talk about it with out looking at each other and laughing, and said that their friends still bring it up often even now decades later. To me, that sounded just about perfect.