Winter brides never had it easy. Everyone thinks how romantic it would be to do a wedding among snow, but nobody wants to advise guests that they’ll be driving with chains required up a mountain. At least in California along the coast the weather is relatively temperate and stable, at least enough that some brides risk it and plan an outdoor ceremony.
But Mother Nature might just crash the party for good this year.
There are so many outdoor venues in the Bay Area. Some of them are ready for the effects of El Niño. Some of them aren’t. In San Francisco alone, you can get married in Rec & Parks areas, The Presidio, and myriad other places. These are standard venues with lots of backup (aka “rain”) plans. But the kinds of storms we might see will go above and beyond the typical bad weather we get from November through roughly March.
With meteorologists updating forecasts regularly, driving up hype around significant El Niño conditions, we expect wetter-than-average winter and spring forecasts in our part of California. That means local lovebirds are getting dealt a meteorological wild card.
An outdoor California wedding, especially in the Bay Area, is easy to imagine. A long white dress next to our infamous Eucalyptus. Two grooms dressed handsomely as princes in front of the Palace of Fine Arts. Guests playing witness to the power of unity and love with the waves crashing off in the distance. What you don’t imagine is a sudden storm fueled by El Niño crashing the party.
Like Rain on Your Wedding Day
Belle Vie Estate, active on the San Francisco Weddings subreddit, says, “First, "El Niño through February/March" does not mean it starts raining in November and California turns the faucet off sometime in March. El Niño is a months-long climate pattern, not one very committed storm. And unfortunately, El Niño has not RSVP'd yet for your specific wedding date.” Indeed, the weather can be an uninvited special guest. Alanis Morissette even wrote a song about it!
Not only will rain ruin your dress, it could cause mud and slippage, make vendors more likely to cancel, cause your guests to have a miserable time, and ruin the planned photos you were dreaming of for your wedding album. Plus it will likely be cold rain, with wind that could take down trees and power lines. Imagine you can’t serve your drinks because the ice machine is down, or you can’t style your hair because there’s no power for a blowdryer. What a bummer that would be!
But you never know. Things might work out in your favor. One redditor says, “The morning of, woke up to pouring rain, we had hail a couple hours before the the ceremony and then the skies cleared and we had the best window of weather to have pictures, our ceremony and the start of our reception before it started raining again. At some point it’ll be best to over prepare.”
I bet you can guess the next complication to consider. That’s right, it’s microclimates, back again to steal the show! Just because it’s raining in the Presidio doesn’t mean you’ll feel sprinkles out near Heron’s Head. And when it’s windy in the pines, by the bay it might be fine. Beyond San Francisco, the other romantic and picturesque places to get married around the Bay Area are worth at least a little bit of a risk. If you gamble on an off-season date, just make sure you understand the rain plan and can coordinate with the venue and vendors (especially the caterer! NOBODY wants to be a hungry guest, even and especially if the booze is still flowing).
Rain kneecaps your ability to frolic outside. But on the plus side, it’s meant to be good luck. That is, if you can keep your guests dry and get through the ceremony without Grandma floating off on a surfboard a la the Winter 2023 flooding.
At the end of the day, I guess there’s City Hall. Although you might risk getting photobombed by the mayor.
