Weddingbee Blog

State College, Pennsylvania in late March.

Technically, it’s spring.

Usually, it’s still winter.

Rarely, it’s not snowing or raining.

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According to The Weather Channel’s My Wedding Weather Planner, the information for our wedding month and location is as follows:

• Cloudy - 16-17 days
• Less than 32 degrees - 23-27 days
• Rain - 11-13 days (average 3.37 inches in March)
• Snow - 6 days (average 9-12 inches in March)

And specifically for our wedding date:

Average Temperature (High/Low): 50/31 degrees

• 2009 Actual Temperatures (High/Low): 56/33 degrees
• 2008 Actual Temperatures (High/Low): 45/32 degrees
• 2007 Actual Temperatures (High/Low): 79/55 degrees

(HEY 2007! I’ll take it!)

Sounds like the BEST time and place to get married, right? Yeah, I thought you’d agree. You might remember why we’re getting married in March. It really wasn’t negotiable, so we’ve tried our best to embrace our potentially rain or snow-filled wedding date. Really, I’ve just been trying to be prepared - both mentally (so as to avoid wedding day meltdowns) and physically. This post is about the latter.

Bring on the rain (*crosses fingers*)!

Early in the planning process, I noticed lots of gorgeous summer weddings with bridal parties toting parasols:

(source for pictures)

While they were SO pretty, I knew a dainty parasol would not help to ward off any wedding day rain, so I started looking for cute umbrellas. This is when I first came to know and love Bella Umbrella. This online retailer gives you the option of renting or buying vintage umbrellas or buying their Signature Bella Umbrella new - customized for you. There are a ton of fantastic vintage rental options to choose from, and I quickly fell in love with this one:

The $30 dollar/day rental price tag seemed reasonable at the time, especially once I clicked over to their customizable Signature Bella page, where the umbrellas start at $99 (but OMG, do I still have such an urge to splurge on this beauty!):

Then I began looking for more price-friendly options. I still loved the vintage look of the Bellas, knew I wanted the stick type, and of course, I preferred to stay within my color scheme. I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself on Totes’ site. They too have some bridal umbrellas and some basic stick umbrellas, all around $16-25 dollars - to own! Take a peek at what they’ve got to offer:

Auto-open Stick in Balsam $16; Auto-open Satin Bridal in Porcelain $25

What great, reasonably-priced alternatives! I ordered a few of the green and one porcelain, knowing that if the day was rain-less, I could give them to friends and family or sell them later!

I was feeling pretty proud of myself for being so prepared when I saw this picture featured in Kate Parker’s Rainy Day Weddings post on Weddingbee PRO:

Galoshes! Why didn’t I think of that! Look at the horrible weather going on in this photo. And yet, the beautiful bride looks calm and collected - she’s not worrying about destroying her wedding shoes! GENIUS!

Even though rain boots are very popular, I had never bought a pair. This seemed like the perfect reason to own some now, especially since I knew I would have them for the big day (just in case!). After a quick search on eBay, I found these for almost half of what Amazon was charging for them - and in my size!

Cute, no? See my wedding purples? There was no way I could pass these up. Plus, I am still searching for my final “Something Blue”, so if worst comes to worst, and it’s raining, I know I’ll have one. Plus, now I know that in the event of rain my gorgeous shoes will remain intact since they will only have to be on my feet once we are in the clear inside a building.

But what about snow?

Well, I figure that the galoshes will come in handy in this situation as well - the snow will definitely do just as much damage to my shoes as rain. But, hello, it has the potential to be freeeeezing! What’s a bride to do?

We’ve all seen the gorgeous options in furs, but that just really isn’t me, plus I am looking for a more re-wearable option. That’s when the light went off in my head. Am I the only one who gets about 5,000 Victoria’s Secret catalogs each year? Probably not. I always look through their coats section thinking, ‘wow there are a lot of white coats in here, weird.’ Now? Not so weird!

Their coats are priced around what I would normally pay for a winter jacket anyway, and there are some ridiculously cute options. And they are designed for everyday so they can, of course, be worn everyday after the wedding!

Victory!

Take a look at these great options:

Did you put a lot of thought into your wedding day weather? What are you doing to prepare?