Planning for a Wet Outdoor Wedding Ceremony

Hi! My name is Andrew Hellmich from Impact Images. When brides think of their wedding days and planning for their wedding day, rain is probably their biggest single fear. That’s the one thing that you cannot control but if you have a little bit of prior planning beforehand, everything should go fine and it shouldn’t be such an interruption. So in this short video I am going to give you nine different things to think about as far as planning for your ceremony, if you are having an outdoor ceremony and it looks like it might rain or you want to be prepared for rain if it does come. The first thing that I would be looking at organizing would be some umbrellas. Now, umbrellas - you can bring these yourself. If you want them to all match and look fantastic in your photos, I would speak to your photographer first. I know at Impact Images, both our studios in New Castle and Erina Heights, the Central Coast Studio, delivering umbrellas for the whole bridal party. So we will have clear ones for the girls, black ones for the guys and they look great in the photos. If you don’t want to go and purchase these umbrellas yourself or your photographer doesn’t have them, speak to the car people, if you are having car hire. They will often have umbrellas. They may not all match but they should have some good looking umbrellas that might work well with your wedding day. So that’s my number one option. Car people or photographer should both have those available for you guys, especially if you have got good photographers. Okay, the other option or the next option would be a marquee. Now the marquees these days, I have seen them holding people, a number of people, from 50 up to 200, and you can get in any size in between. You don’t need to organize their sides and doorways and all that sort of thing. You can just order the basic marquee if it’s for your ceremony, no sides, just the roof and poles. That would normally get erected for you from the hire company. They will get it set up the day before or the morning of the wedding. And look, if you don’t use the marquee because it happens not to rain - fantastic, that’s great! You can still use that for some sun protection or to serve drinks and nibbles or canapés after the ceremony. So you should get some use out of this marquee no matter what, okay? So it’s not a bad option. You may have to get permission to set this up if you are on council land, which more than likely you will be for an outdoor wedding, suggest check with them, okay? It should be okay, but they just like to know about those sorts of things. Another common option, sort of most probably getting straight back to before the marquee and the umbrellas is their reception venue. Now that can be a great idea as well. If you have your heart set on having an outdoor ceremony, you need to look carefully at the reception venue that you picked for your wedding and just check that they have got room to have you and all your guests inside if it happens to be a wet day. Some receptions places will say, “Yeah, yeah, we can fit you”, and then when it actually comes to the day, it’s just chock-a-block. There’s no room and they have some dingy little back room and it’s not as nicer as you first thought that it was going to be, or they pitched in your head. So just a little bit of preparation there and everything should be fine. You’ll find that some of the venues will have amazing spaces. So just check on the places that you have picked and like I said, if it’s a big thing to have your outdoor wedding, you need to have that back-up plan in place, and make sure you talk to your reception venue. Another option is a hotel. I know in all the areas that we service, Central Coast, New Castle, Hunter Valley, there’s going to be plenty of hotel options. Now for instance, we’ve got ‘The Crowne Plaza’ down at Terrigal. There’s a number of…there’s another ‘Crowne Plaza’ at New Castle. In the Hunter Valley, you’ve got lots of different vineyards, and there’s also hotels up there as well. So talk to them. If you are looking for somewhere to stay at the night of your wedding and you know you’ve got a fancy hotel close by and they have large rooms, I would talk to those people and see if you can maybe temporarily book or put a hold on a room for the ceremony, just in case it happens to be raining on your wedding day. So that’s another good option there. They will usually have function rooms. You are probably not going to get the main room for your ceremony, if it’s a Saturday wedding in Spring because they may be booked already. But they may have some other space for you. They don’t like to turn you away if they know you could have 100 guests buying drinks after your ceremony. So they will try to accommodate you wherever they can, particularly if you are going to be staying there that night and you are bringing all those guests along. So hotel is not a bad option. Apartments - again, if you are looking for somewhere to stay that night and you are looking at say, a set of apartments or some apartments and they have great space you think there might be good enough room there for your ceremony for all your guests, then talk to the apartment owners and see if that’s going to work out for you, and that may be really a good option. Again, thinking around where I shoot mainly at Terrigal on the Central Coast, we have ‘Star of the Sea Apartments’. Bob, who manages that facility there, he will get out of his way to make sure that your day is perfect, and he’ll make sure that he finds something to accommodate you and your guests and the wedding will be perfect. So apartment is another good option. Look, I mentioned some wineries a minute ago, they are fantastic! So they will always have room. Well, most of them have room but depending on the time of the year, who has booked and who has not. Again, if it’s a Spring or Autumn wedding, when it’s going to be busy, you need to try and source a winery where that does not have a booking for start but still has that room. You will find a lot of them have barrel rooms and storage rooms, and some of those can look fantastic when they’re done up and they are going to work really, really well for the ceremony. So let’s say it’s barrel. The ceremony wineries are in the place, even the Central Coast has a little winery down there that will accommodate a smaller wedding indoors as well. So that’s another good option. Okay, next on my list, I have got down surf clubs. I did a lot of weddings at surf clubs up to about a year ago. I do less now but there’s more and more being built or redone and refurbished and they look fantastic. And they are the ones that usually get booked up first for actual weddings. So if you are looking for a back-up option, I would go to just the slightly older surf clubs - the ones that haven’t been redone in recent years, and you are more likely to be ‘holding the puzzle’ I guess you’d call that, onto one of those places and you can use that for your ceremony. Again, you probably won’t be going there unless it is raining. So you want to try and look for somewhere where you don’t have to put too much of a deposit down and hopefully you can get hold of that room, if you do need it. Okay, another option. When I do suggest this to my couples sometimes they sort of freak out because local halls have like a bit of a dingy, ugly sort of connotation, I said hall like all halls. There’s all sorts of halls around the places, community halls, Rotary halls. I know that a local yacht club has an area hall, or I guess you’d call it a hall that backs right on to the water. So there are some really good looking halls around. Some of them would need some dressing up, I am sure. That goes without saying, but it can be a great option. They are not going to cost you very much. You can put a hold on it for a long time in advance and you can get down and dress it up in the morning of the wedding or send someone else down there to do that, if it comes to that. It’s just not a big outlay to have that on hold. Again, do a bit of looking around. I am sure you’ll find something in that regard. The last option I have got down here is a house. So look, you may know someone that has a fantastic house that could back on to a beach. It could just be a large, modern, open, plain house. You really do want, you need something I guess I even plan. So it doesn’t have to be quite modern or redone. And you will be surprised at how many people you can fit into an area like that. So if you know someone who’s got a great house, one of your guests or family, you can put it to them that it might be an option. I am sure you will be up for some cleaning phase and things like that afterwards, but it’s still going to be better than being stuck out on the beach in wet weather. Okay, so what have I got written - nine different options there? I am sure you will find something in there to suit yourself. As far as prices go, umbrellas’ obviously are going to be the cheapest. Marquee can get expensive depending on how big you go for, so it’s going to be a few dollars there. Reception venue - that should be no charge. They should normally include that when go and see them. Hotel, probably some dollars to hold it but again if you are going to be bringing a hundred guests there for drinks then that should be pretty minimal. Apartments - possibly no charge. I know Bob will look after you at ‘Star of the Sea’. Winery and bar range definitely, you have to pay for those, okay? So just have a talk with the local wineries where you are planning on having a ceremony and see what you can come up with there. Sometimes they have a payment plan where you have to pay some money and then also buy a case or two of wines. So at least you are walking away with something as well for you for your money spent there, so that maybe a good option. And look, if I had a great winery picked out from a ceremony and didn’t happen to rain, I would probably still be going there for photos because you would have picked that place because you liked it. So, it’s not all lost having those dollars spent there. Surf clubs, definitely. You’ll have to check as far as drinks go at surf clubs. They do have some licensing rules. If you are not having drinks, I am sure that won’t be a problem and I don’t think you’d pay too much there for a surf club on a sold afternoon, particularly if you’re going to be out there before the evening so they can run other functions after yours. Local halls – they are pretty cheap. They’ll run from around $30-an-hour. So again, not very much. You can book that well in advance, have them on hold. They will take…you will need more money there to dress those up, okay, and make them look the way you want them to look. House - if you know someone, I guess you are going to have cleaning fees. That’s about, I think it’s about all you are going to have there unless you are going to be paying your friends or family for the use of the house. Those cleaning fees, they may run up to I guess, to the hundreds, depending on how dirty everyone was and their feet and what the day was like. So look I hope that helps. At the end of the day after it’s all said and done, the main thing is that you guys are getting married. So don’t worry too much about the weather. Just enjoy the day. Make sure you’ve got those plans in place and remember that you’re getting married and that’s once you’ve done that and you are smiling, you are going to be getting great photos no matter what. Everyone will have a great time and that’s the most important part. Well, that’s it for me today. I hope you can stop by our website and that’s www.impact-images.com.au. I love to see you there, and if you are looking for a wedding photographer, make sure you give us a look and we would love to talk to you. All right, thanks for that. See you next time, bye!