The skies are clear…. The birds are chirping…. Its a comfortable 65 with low humidity, slight breeze out our the SE and slightly overcast, the perfect day for a wedding. Its at this point your alarm rings and snaps you back to reality. This is Columbus, Oh and and low humidity here is above 50%, it could snow in spring or be 65 in January. Not the ideal environment for an outdoor wedding. Not impossible by any stretch, but lets talk about some of the keys to making sure that spring, summer or fall outdoor wedding goes off without a hitch.
There are a number of complications that come with an outdoor wedding, the most notable is weather. I absolutely love Columbus, I’ve had the pleasure of living on both coasts and a fair amount of places in between, this is always home. Having said that our weather like our drivers are horrible. Between Florida like humidity and In a year like 2021, a biblical plague of cicadas we are fighting an uphill battle against the elements. Always keep this in mind when planning. If you are dead set on having an outside wedding make sure to have an answer for any of these problems
For instance its always wise to have cover for all outdoor events. Easiest way to do that is a tent. When putting a tent up its good to do a couple days before the event. If the weather is showing rain, don’t wait till the day before your wedding to put tent up. Sure if will prevent further rain from getting in but the 2inches of water that accumulated over the last week will just be sitting there when your guests arrive so make sure to get that tent up early. Also anticipate that rain rarely falls straight down which leads me to my next weather consideration…. Wind.
Wind is another huge issue for outdoor weddings. Not only can it sling rain underneath the well thought out tent it was also make communication very difficult. Back to that tent I was talking about always make sure that you have the capability to attack walls to it. This way if we get a windy rainy day the walls will keep ya safe. Now the other problem wind brings…. Using the mic’s. Wind make using audio equipment beyond difficult. That mic is gonna pic up the audio from the wind more then it will the speaker. Long and short is it creates problems..
Humidity is another problem. Even if you get a nice day with no rain, good chance is its gonna be humid, nature of the environment around us. I could go on and on….
The moral of this tale is that outdoor weddings are just fine as long as you have back up plans. Don’t let my warning scare you away, I inform you so you can make the best possible preparations to make sure everything goes off with out a hitch. Best case scenario for an outdoor wedding is choosing a venue that has both indoor and outdoor capability. This way if you plan on having an outdoor ceremony and it rains day of… no big deal, we move things inside and we are on our way. The weather cares not that it’s your wedding day, so make sure to always stay a couple steps ahead of it. Great preparation and planning lead to great outdoor weddings.