Dealing With Wedding Weather

Issue #48

[Read Time - 5 minutes]

Ah, yes, the weather on a wedding day!

Or as I like to say, “Plan for the best and expect the worst.”

Of course, every bride dreams of her wedding day to be 80 degrees with a whisper of a breeze from the south and daylight until 9:30 pm (or at least until the outdoor ceremony is over, and then it can get dark 40 minutes after that).

I dream of finding a duffel bag full of mob money in a ditch, but that’s probably not going to happen either.

Now, full disclosure - I have shot the wedding of an experienced meteorologist, and I can confidently say that despite her years of training and study of complex weather patterns and recognition of even the slightest barometric pressure deviations, she still couldn’t keep clouds away on her wedding day.

It’s weather...what can you do?

Communicating with your couples is the best plan if there’s potentially bad weather in the forecast.

When a bride plans her wedding day, she’s NOT factoring in things like wind, rain, or even the amount of sunlight available in the evenings.

Of course, the big caveat here is what part of the world you live in, so I’ll leave that up to you.

What I do want to encourage is discussing the weather with your bride in advance as you plan out the timeline of the day.

Yes, you’re a pro, and you can pivot on a dime if things change, but you’re a pro BECAUSE you have thought about things like:

• What if it rains 3 inches the night before the wedding?

• What if it rains 3 inches on the day of the wedding?

• What will that backyard tent reception look like with those 3 inches of rain?

• Where will you take photos despite the rain?

These same scenarios all apply to heat, cold, and wind.

It’s kind of a rite of passage to shoot in a rainstorm during the wedding.

It’s also up to you to make sure you can protect your gear if it does, and KEEP SHOOTING.

Brides don’t care about your gear - they want great photos from their wedding day.

I’ve had the honor of couples married outdoors in the rain, married on a day when it was -20°F (thankfully not outside), and married outside when it was 109°F...and no shade...and no AC for the outdoor reception :(

YOU, as the photographer, have to deal with these conditions, especially if the couple isn’t bothered by them (why shouldn’t they be happy, after all? They just got married!).

But also YOU, as the wedding professional, have to help your bride understand how adverse weather conditions will affect her photos.

One memorable example was the day my couple married during a particularly frigid week.

Of course, no one predicted that a surprisingly beautiful layer of -20°F frost would cover the city 8 hours before she said, “I do.”

She knew it would be winter (calendars are helpful like that), but she also envisioned a shot of her and her groom in the middle of the street right outside her historic church.

It was a beautiful stretch of pavement, with downtown high-rise buildings rising up on both sides.

The problem was that it was really, really, really cold. That’s where planning comes in.

My bride wanted this photo, and I wanted my bride to HAVE this photo. I also didn’t want anyone to die of extreme cold. So here’s how it went down:

I got my couple assembled in the church. I scouted the location, went outside, set the angle, set the exposure, and rushed back in to warm myself. Then we practiced the pose. When everyone was ready, we rushed back outside to capture a shot they will never forget - a frost-covered urban landscape with two newly married kids in a warm embrace, locking lips only for a moment so they didn’t freeze together unexpectedly.

120 seconds of cold and a lifetime to warm up and tell that story to your grandkids.

The best advice I’ve already given is to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, but I’ll give you a small box of bullets to keep in your holster so you can hopefully handle hard weather like a pro.

• Protect your gear - wind, sand, dust, water are not friends to your camera & lens, weathersealed or not.

• 3 or 4 kitchen trash bags in your trunk take no space, but come in really handy in a pinch

• Don’t fight the wind. You’ll never win, and when the bride’s $200 “updo” goes bye-bye with a gust, there’s not much you can do to fix it.

• Find covered spots to shoot if it’s raining.

• YOU can get wet, THEY cannot

• Outdoor weddings = The Unexpected

• Prepare for The Unexpected and be a hero.

• Shoot The Unexpected because it’s a part of their day - rain on the windows, blown over chairs, melting cupcakes and puddles around the floral-covered gazebo are fun details to remember, even if they don’t look fun today.

• Pack backup clothing if needed - a jacket, shoes, socks and even pants just in case something goes really wrong.

• Don’t wear favorite shoes if there’s a chance you’ll ruin them (like I did).

• Umbrella? If it’s not already in your car, make sure it is by the wedding day and pack a couple of extras to share.

• Know when the sun goes down and when the best light will be for portraits (Frequently overlooked)

• Chance for clouds? Factor that into the sunset time.

• Use a groomsmen to help block the sun or hold a flash if you’re working alone (They’re called Voice-Activated Light Stands or VOLS)

• If you see a potential problem, raise it with the bride early and offer a good solution. Let her make the call, but don’t worry, she’ll trust you.

• Don’t put the couple in any precarious situation. If there’s a chance someone could get dirty, avoid it.

• Because it’s so important, I’ll say it again - DO NOT take the bride or the girls outside when it’s windy.

• Reassure your bride that even with the conditions, their photos will still be fantastic because you’re going to make them so.

• Remind your bride that no matter what the weather is, this day is about something more.

Your role isn’t to change the weather, but to preserve this day as well as you can, despite the weather and conditions.

Just last week, the weather was perfect.

For the bride and groom, they could not have asked for better weather, but for me, things were much different.

What the couple didn’t see was the evening sun pouring right into the glass wedding chapel, creating unbearable hotspots no amount of fill-flash could fix.

That wasn’t their problem, it was mine, so finding creative ways to get angles that didn’t ruin the overall shot was my responsibility.

Just like every other aspect of being the wedding photographer, this day is not about you.

Wedding photography can be marvelous, but it can also be messy. Your job is to make sure the “marvel” always stays in front of the bride.

You can take the messy home with you later.

“Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.”

George Carlin

Knowing how to handle adverse wedding weather is one of the little parts of the “inner game of wedding photography.”

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