Rain or Shine: How To Combat Unpredictable Pennsylvania Weather For Your Wedding

Your venue. One of the first steps in the planning process. Pennsylvania-based venues have most likely dealt with every weather possible throughout the year, maintaining options for each season. Once you know the time of year you're getting married, talk to venue coordinator about past weather experiences and what options they have. Knowing if they have an indoor option will lessen your stress leading up to the big day.

If you fell in love with an outdoor venue, don’t sell yourself short or minimize the dream. It just means you might need to look into renting a tent, depending on the time of year. The show must go on, and whether it is a downpour or humid heat wave, a tent has quality potential to save the day. Some venues that have indoor and outdoor options for all events of your special day include Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Bella Sera Event Villa in Canonsburg, The Mill at Manor Falls in Millersville and The Harper Event Venue in Meadville.

Making sure guests, vendors and your venue know ahead of time what your plans are will ensure smoothness in times of crisis. The bride doesn’t want to be bombarded from all different directions with questions. Along with your venue, Pennsylvania vendors have most likely been through different situations like this and can help you.

The timeline that's set is crucial to guarantee everything can go as planned, even if something needs to move indoors. Discussing a clear cutoff time of when you are going to decide how the wedding will go if there is questionable weather that day gives you and the venue time to get everything and everyone in place while still starting on time. Whether it's six hours, three hours, or more or less warning, establishing a backup plan makes sure the event is just as beautiful as the original plan.

The thing about the four seasons in Pennsylvania is that certain seasons may come early or stay late. Each time of year has pros and cons for your wedding, and weather shows up somewhere in there for all four. Intentionally planning the timing of your big day can help minimize the potential for weather becoming an issue.

If you are getting married in the summer, aim for a 4 p.m. or later start time as peak heat usually happens in the late afternoon. Avoiding the humidity best you can, especially with an outside affair, will help you greatly. During this timeframe, you might even catch golden hour. For the fall, knowing whether daylight savings is in effect or not can direct you to your ideal celebration. In Pennsylvania, the sun sets as early as 4:30 p.m. in the later months. Mid-afternoon in this season hosts most of the warmth as well, not just sunlight. Rain is a factor for any time of year, but it especially becomes a problem in the spring. Don't forget to watch for mud!

Depending on the season, you might just catch that window of three hours being clear, signaling "go time." Allowing a period for photos is also a consideration in planning your event and even if your wedding is inside, you might want that 30 minutes to catch some last minute shots before the sun goes down. Don’t count anything out, but be prepared best you can with the trends the state sees. Pennsylvania can be surprising, in both good and unfortunate ways.

Some of the biggest features that suffer from unexpected weather on your wedding day is makeup, hair and the dress. Adjustments are going to flow better when you have extra products and bobby pins, just in case. Scouting the venue with your photographer prior to the big day for indoor spots in case things get moved or if the weather pleasantly surprises you and you want some outdoor spots ready will spare you the stress of redoing that precarious winged eyeliner.

Talk with your makeup and hair artists before and do trial runs, even if you're doing it yourself so there is some idea of how it will hold up. Your hairdresser will be able to benefit your needs more if they understand your hair type beforehand in case of precipitation or humidity. They know what products will work the best and last the longest. Same goes for makeup. Knowing your skin type and researching setting products ahead of time to see what has good hold depending on the conditions of the season you've chosen for your wedding.

Wardrobe wise, the bride wants to find her dream dress. As much as it might be smarter to stick to lighter fabrics in summer and more heavy layering in the colder months, she can pick whatever she wants. No matter the choice, having a bustle or hook so that it isn’t dragging along the ground, especially if it is wet or muddy, is going to relieve a lot of fashion stress.