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Wedding Etiquette Forum
aurianna
member
Outdoor wedding in July - Rude or not?
So someone I know was talking about her daughter's wedding.
Her daughter has a large property about an hour away from the city and wanted to have an outdoor wedding on it.
She purposely planned her wedding for the middle of July.
We live in the midwest in an area that it is usually in the 90s in July and always humid. It reached 100 degrees the day of the wedding.
I believe there were tents, but the entire thing was outdoors.
She commented that they had a cooler of 100 water bottles and went through all of them. She said this proudly.
She kept insisting that "it wasn't that bad."
I'm not sure I'd want my wedding being remembered as "not that bad."
It sounded miserable to me but I don't know.
Do you think it's rude to plan an outdoor wedding when you have no reason to assume it won't be 85+ outside and humid?
Her daughter has a large property about an hour away from the city and wanted to have an outdoor wedding on it.
She purposely planned her wedding for the middle of July.
We live in the midwest in an area that it is usually in the 90s in July and always humid. It reached 100 degrees the day of the wedding.
I believe there were tents, but the entire thing was outdoors.
She commented that they had a cooler of 100 water bottles and went through all of them. She said this proudly.
She kept insisting that "it wasn't that bad."
I'm not sure I'd want my wedding being remembered as "not that bad."
It sounded miserable to me but I don't know.
Do you think it's rude to plan an outdoor wedding when you have no reason to assume it won't be 85+ outside and humid?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Outdoor wedding in July - Rude or not?
What bride wants to be sweating in her wedding dress and have her makeup literally melting off of her face? What groom wants to be sweating through his tux.
I would have declined that wedding in a hot minute. . .even if it was for a sibling! Actually I would have said to my sibling when he/she was planning the wedding, "Are you out of your fucking mind? No way!"
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space."
It's one thing if you plan a wedding in September and it's unseasonably hot or you plan a wedding in a part of the country that's usually temperate and there's a freak heatwave. In that case, you move it inside if you can, and if you can't, fans, shade, extra drinks, apologies to your guests and acceptance of no-shows and people leaving early.
But purposely having an outdoor wedding in the Midwest in July? I can't comprehend the thought process. It wasn't even a cheaper vendor issue. She had the wedding on her own property!!
Was it ideal? No. I'm sure some people said "it wasn't that bad" when describing our wedding.
However, the food was amazing and plentiful. The booze was flowing and the dance floor was packed all night long. Even in between food courses. People still talk about how much fun the wedding was even with the not so ideal weather conditions.
On paper it doesn't sound idea, but I wasn't there. If there were tents with fans or a/c and it was otherwise hosted properly it might have been better than it sounded.
I think the big difference here is that your situation was a freak accident. Like, shit happens! And you made the best of it! And I bet everyone had a blast.
In the situation the OP described, the wedding was purposely planned that way. Super hot and humid IS going as planned. Sounds bizarre.
Heh.. maybe I was wrong about the reception area. Was it in Lake St. Louis and the cake was just the top layer surrounded by cupcakes?
If you want to get married outside in 90+ degrees with dew points in the mid-70s like it has been here all summer, go right ahead...all by your lonesome selves. But the minute you invite guests, you are hosting a party for them and it's no longer about you. So that might mean being a grown-up and accepting that you may have to compromise something (whether that be the date or the location).
And planning without an inclement weather back-up plan (and not realizing that inclement weather also means too hot, too cold, too windy and not just too wet) is just asinine.
If I got invited to an outdoor wedding in TX at like 3pm, I'd be busy washing my hair that day.
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It is also not rude to decline such an invitation. Reason for the decline does not need to be specified.
Is it not rude to invite people to a wedding there?
Is the thought that while it might not be "rude", your friends and family are still gonna talk about you like you're batshit crazy? Or is there a line you can actually cross?
But if it's super hot with everyone fanning wedding programs to cool off - not OK.
DH's brother-in-law asked "Is any part of this wedding going to be held outdoors?" We told him "No." He said. "OK, then," and accepted the invitation.
I've seen plans for camping weddings, hiking weddings, beach weddings - all on The Knot. They are not rude, but I wouldn't accept an invitation to one.
Do you not think it is rude to invite someone to a wedding with no chairs? Because guests can always decline?
When you invite someone to a wedding, they should assume that there will be chairs. If you are invited to an outdoor wedding, you should assume that there will not be air-conditioning, or, like DH's BIL, the guest could ask in advance.
My sister's wedding was in Iowa in August in a city park. No one thought it would be air-conditioned. Of course there were seats for everyone. Now THAT would have been rude, not to have seats for guests.
I, personally, dislike outdoor weddings at any time of year, but that doesn't make them rude. Please pass the bug spray.
There's a difference between knowing that in your area in July it's most likely hot but the venue is pretty vs. a situation another poster encountered where a tropical storm hit. FWIW, anytime I've been stuck in a humid rain storm, I also don't find that it's crazy hot - just humid. That's a major difference between feeling like your dress is damp and feeling like you're sweating so much you may need an ambulance.
A dear friend went to a wedding last year that originally was her dream wedding. It was rustic and in the summer and in a barn. All was lovely until the lack of AC and no cooling kicked in and everyone sweat so much that the groom's grandmother was taken to the hospital.
Most of the time the details sound worse on here than it really is. Other times there is indeed poor planning.
A tented wedding in July in the mid-west does not have to be a shit show if planned correctly. DH was flown to Iowa at the end of June to do an outside wedding reception. They had a barn, but for the most part the wedding was outside. DH doesn't sugar coast anything and he is overly sensitive to heat and he said it's wasn't bad at all.
The club I work does wedding. They are all outdoor weddings (veranda and tents). We actually do not do any indoor weddings at all. It will be 90 and sun baring in your eyes at sunset. Then it drops down to 60 degrees by the end of the night. We do not have a/c, but there are heaters.
It sounds horrible when writing it out, but it really isn't bad at all. I don't hear people complaining (and trust me guests love to complain to the servers).