Photo Credit: Sherman Chu Photography
If you’re having a summertime wedding, you’re probably envisioning a
gorgeous, blue-sky day that’s like something out of a movie — a sea of
perfect, white roses everywhere you look, and your guests in
high-fashion ensembles walking through the gardens with champagne
glasses in their hands, remarking how this is the most beautiful wedding
they’ve ever seen.
What you’re
not envisioning is those same guests overheated,
dehydrated and slumping in their chairs from the humidity, sweat
pouring down the back of your dress, and hundreds of mosquitoes stuck in
the icing of your perfect summer wedding cake. Or the guests remarking
that they’ve never been so uncomfortable in all their lives.
Don’t let mother nature steal your summer wedding perfection! We have
the top tips for preventing the dangers of the dog-day summertime heat
and humidity for your guests’ comfort, your cake’s survival, and your
wedding-day bliss. Here’s how to plan ahead for cool comforts and a
critter-free cake:
Keeping Guests Cool
Photo Credit: Annie X Photographie
1. Choose an Indoor-Outdoor location. If you haven’t
already booked your site — whether all-outdoors or all-indoors — look
for a beautiful reception site that offers both outdoor and indoor party
areas, such as one with a fabulous ballroom
and a lovely
outdoor terrace overlooking manicured gardens, a golf course, or the
ocean. Guests can decide if they want to be in the outdoor elements, or
comfortable inside in the air conditioned building. Especially if you
have older or pregnant guests, it’s essential to provide a cooler
environment option for all.
2. Rent A/C units. If your wedding
will be in a tent, or out in the open air, be sure to rent high-quality,
portable fans that you test out in the rental store to judge their
strength and relative silence. Great party fans now run at a lower
volume level so that everyone can hear the toasts and the music. Invest
well in plenty of these fans for everyone’s comfort, and place them
around the seating area, the bar, anywhere guests will gather.
3. Provide cooling gadgets. At hot outdoor weddings,
and even on the tables of the terrace, set out vases or
theme-appropriate containers of little hand-held, battery-run fans, or
pretty paper fans for guests to cool themselves with.
4. Provide sunscreen. If guests will spend hours out
in the sun, you’re a terrific host to set a spray bottle of high-SPF
sunscreen at each table as well.
5. Serve lots of ice water in stylish glasses with pretty slices of lemon, lime or orange. Who
says your water can’t coordinate with your wedding colors? Guests at
outdoor weddings love having fresh, ice-cold water brought to them
throughout the event, so be sure to order hand-passed ice water service
on silver trays. If you’re having a more informal wedding, consider
stocking the bar or buffet with a few ice-filled coolers of water
bottles.
6. Use natural shade. Scout out your location and
ask the site manager to arrange seats and tables under the shade of
trees, or with big, bright table umbrellas.
7. No burning their butts! If your
site will set out metal chairs for the ceremony or outdoor seating, be
aware that metal can heat up in the sun. Either arrange for chair
cushions or invest in fabric slip covers for chairs that will be placed
in peak sunlight.
Protecting Your Look
8. Choose a summer wedding gown made of lighter fabric, appropriate
for a hot-weather summer wedding, and talk to your gown stylist about
fabrics that breathe, such as cotton organdy, chiffon, crepe, or voile
over silk. You don’t want horrible sweat stains under your breasts, at
the base of your spine and at your armpits.
9. Choose a tuxedo fabric that also breathes for the men, and select open-backed vests for the men’s comfort as well.
10. Choose the right shoes. Go for comfort as well as style with
thicker heels that won’t sink into soft summertime grass.
11. Skip the train. If your ceremony and reception will be outdoors, skip the long train that only gathers grass stains with every step you take.
12. Prepare for summer hair. Curls and sculpted
up-do’s often don't fare well in hot, humid weather, so go for a
trial-run hair styling with a pro, explaining your summer wedding date
and experimenting with
sleeker hairstyles such as a pulled-back chignon or low ponytail. Hairstyles with height just aren’t going to look good for long in hot summer weather.
13. Re-think the flowers in your hair. Individual
fresh blooms tucked into your hair won’t have a water source and may be
the first to wilt, which is not the best effect on your wedding day.
14. Pack blotting papers and powder. Guard against
shine on your nose and forehead by including plenty of blotting papers
and powder in your purse or emergency kit, and ask a bridesmaid to let
you know when you need to treat your skin shine so that you don’t look
oil-dipped in your important photos.
15. Skip the perfume. If you don’t want swarms of
bees around you, skip the scent until the evening hours when you can
freshen with a gentle spritz. If you or your groom have outdoor
allergies, check the day’s pollen counts at
nasal-allergies.com or
weather.com,
and use your regular allergy medication to prevent the sniffles,
sneezing, red and watery eyes, and stuffed-up sinuses that can wreck
your look and comfort.
Keeping Flowers Fresh
16. On a hot day, beware of your summer wedding
flowers wilting quickly. Sometimes, they’re droopy when they reach you,
having suffered during shipment from the floral store to your location. S
o ask your floral designer to transport your flowers with extra attention paid to their water sources,
such as setting all the bouquets upright in a container with a few
inches of water for the stems to drink from [you would need to make sure
that your bouquet handles are wrapped in such a way—such as just around
the
middle of the gathered stems—so that cut stems are exposed
at the bottom to drink up water, not fully covered by satin ribbon. Or
choose single-stem flowers as both a budget idea and as a more realistic
plan to keep flowers fresh and cool.
17. Choose your summer wedding flowers well for their water source ability. For instance,
hydrangea is a lovely summer flower, but it wilts in minutes without a good water source,
so floral designers advise you to keep the hydrangea out of your
bouquet and off of your groom’s lapel, instead placing sprigs in little,
water-filled vases on each table.
18. Keep your summer wedding flowers ultra-cool
before the ceremony, perhaps popping all of your bouquets into the
refrigerator between the pre-wedding photos and when you depart for the
ceremony.
And don’t spritz centerpiece flowers with water for outdoor settings,
since direct sunlight will burn that water right off the bloom and turn
your flowers brown. Ask for summertime-sturdy flowers and an efficient
water source for all of your flowers, so that they keep their strength
and look stunning throughout the event.
19. Store your tossing summer wedding bouquet in the site’s refrigerator or in a cooler you bring with you, so that it’s not sitting in the heat, losing its moisture and color.
20. Decide on a Plan B for later-in-the-day photos. Often,
wedding photographers will bring you outside for additional couple
photos while the dancing is going on, so look carefully at your summer
wedding bouquet before you bring it into the frame with you. If all the
flowers are droopy, dry and damaged from the heat, just leave it out of
the frame and pose without it. Digital cameras capture every detail, and
you don’t want to wind up with the horrible surprise of ‘those flowers
are dead’ when you get your fabulous couple kiss-shot photos and see the
damage in hi-resolution. So be sure to look closely and make the
styling decision of whether or not to have the blooms in the shot with
you.
Protecting Your Food
Photo Credit: Sherman Chu / Event Planner: Sasha Souza Events
21. The heat can do terrible things to some of your menu items, including making guests sick. S
o be sure that all seafood, cheeses and meats are stored in super-cooled serving dishes, perhaps on platters made of ice,
and that the caterer keeps replacing sun-warmed salad dressings with
cooler, fresher supplies every so often. Specifically ask for this
cool-food service, as a safety measure.
22. Choose lighter, non-creamy fare
for your cocktail party stations and your meal, to reduce the risk of
spoilage. Summer menu items of cold, refreshing veggies, cold seafood,
mango skewers and gazpacho shots are far more palatable in hot weather
than heavier, cream-sauce dishes…and they’re often less expensive.
23. Cover those serving platters. Keep
the flies and bees away by choosing chafing dishes and serving platters
with lids on them, and don’t decorate your buffet table or stations
with bee-attracting flowers.
24. Prevent mosquito and gnat dive-bombers from attacking your cake [they love the sweet frosting!]
and keep your cake from melting in the sun—and collapsing to the floor—by having the site staff
keep the cake in the refrigerator for the majority of the reception. It can be wheeled out, fresh and cool, when it’s time to cut the cake.
25. Add frozen drinks to your bar menu for your guests’ comfort and enjoyment.
