When Coy Boggler and Annie Wall started planning their intimate
backyard wedding in Phoenix earlier this year, they did not know that by July,
a record-breaking heat wave would settle over the city for 31 straight days.
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Boggler, 47, and Wall, 41, had rented a tent to keep their
guests cool and decided to test it out with three air conditioning units
running, but the temperature inside the tent wouldn’t dip below 93 degrees.
“It was pretty miserable,” said Boggler, a firefighter and
paramedic in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
The couple were at a loss for what to do when they ran into
Chuck Montgomery, a retired deputy fire chief of Glendale, Arizona, and an
acquaintance. Montgomery invited them to move the ceremony to the Hall of Flame
Museum of Firefighting in Phoenix, where Montgomery is executive director.
They married July 8 at the museum in front of FDNY Rescue 4, a
fire rescue truck from the New York City borough of Queens that was salvaged
from 9/11. Their 21 guests, including immediate family and members of Boggler’s
ladder crew, attended the ceremony. Some then returned to Boggler’s house for a
reception with catered barbecue.
“I am happy we didn’t elect to stay in the tent,” Boggler said.
Conten with a slate of extreme weather conditions
Couples planning weddings this summer have had to contend with a
slate of extreme weather conditions, from flooding and unrelenting heat to poor
air quality. Some couples have chosen to stay indoors while others moved dates
to months with cooler temperatures or outside wildfire season. Although this
year has seemed particularly acute, extreme weather is only expected to
intensify, experts say.
“We are going to consistently see broken records for warmest
summer, warmest year,” said Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric
Sciences Program at the University of Georgia. “That’s the reality that we’re
in.”
This summer’s record-breaking weather has tested the entire
wedding industry on how to adapt to a changing climate.
Mitigation practices include comfort stations
Some event planners have implemented mitigation practices for
those having outdoor weddings, such as ordering handheld water spritzers, paper
fans and parasols. Kawania Wooten, a principal consultant for Howerton+Wooten
Events in Bowie, Maryland, now sets up “comfort stations” for guests complete
with eyedrops for poor air quality and sunscreen. Grant and Susan Allendorf,
owners of the Mansfield Barn in Jericho, Vermont, retrofitted their barn space
with air conditioning.
Extreme weather — and heat, in particular — now factors into
almost every aspect of summer wedding planning, from picking flowers that won’t
wilt (no hydrangeas) to choosing a cake frosting that won’t melt (no
buttercream).
Fall and spring may soon replace summer as the peak wedding
season
Fall and spring may soon replace summer as the peak wedding
season. Jamie Chang, a wedding planner in the San Francisco Bay Area who
specializes in destination weddings, said she has noticed clients trending away
from summer over the past five years. She said certain outdoor locations such
as Palm Springs, California, where temperatures reached about 120 degrees in
July, shouldn’t even be considered in the summer.
Tiffany Boykins, owner of Events By Tiffany, in Atlanta, said
she didn’t have a single client this summer who opted for a wedding outside.
Even cocktail hours, which may have previously taken place at a venue’s balcony
or in a garden, have been moved indoors, she said.
Emma and Tyler Young looked exclusively at indoor venues for
their July wedding in Atlanta, where they live. They didn’t want to worry about
having a backup plan in case of heat, storms or unhealthy air quality.
“We wanted to be able to comfortably invite children and
seniors,” said Emma Young, 23.
Sheila and Evan Styduhar pushed their wedding in Lake Tahoe,
Nevada, from last August to October after reading about the wildfires there the
previous summer. “Even if there weren’t fires close to where our wedding was
going to be, we didn’t want to divert resources and bring tourists to the area
when the area is trying to survive,” said Sheila Styduhar, 32.
At the suggestion of their wedding planner, they purchased a
wedding insurance policy that covered extreme weather conditions, including
floods, blizzards and hurricanes. “It’s not something I ever would have thought
of,” Sheila Styduhar said.
Crystal Egger, a meteorologist and co-founder of Monarch, a
climate consultancy company based in San Diego, advised that couples planning
an outdoor wedding check typical weather trends and have a tent as backup.
“This is not the same climate our grandparents were married in,” she said.
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