Planning for Wind for Your Pacific Northwest Wedding
It is a joy to live in the Pacific Northwest. We're forever lucky with lush nature and a temperate climate year-round, though we do have to plan ahead for some itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny things such as, uh, rain and clouds and, oh, WIND. Yes, wind can be a big thing for us Oregonians and Washingtonians! Here's how you need to plan for wind if you're hosting a wedding in the Pacific Northwest.
Sometimes these topics come up as I check off a list of things that are critical to talk about, and other times—like now—I look out my window and see the trees swaying ominously to remind me to prepare. Just a few weekends ago, I found myself at beautiful Leach Botanical Garden for a wedding and everything was going amazingly. The wedding couple were super cute, the venue itself was gorgeous, and the weather was as perfect as you could ask for around this time of year. As we set up the decorations, we could feel the breeze picking up and activated "Wind Plan Alpha" to ensure that everything came out looking excellent.
What said wind plan entailed may sound simple, but forgetting the obvious until it hits could mean disaster. Like with all good wedding planning, you have a kit stocked full of the essentials, and when you've got wind the essentials are zip ties, floral wire, tape, and weighted elements such as heavier tabletop décor, heavy easels, and sandbags. You might see this kit if you're planning a Columbia Gorge wedding like I've done a few times in one of the windiest places around.
As with rain, you'll generally find certain times of year to be windier than others, so if you plan to have a lot of decorations or wedding pieces that could easily blow away, your best plan will could involve heading indoors or a shelter where you can shut the rain or wind out. Unlike rain though, wind can't be so easily blocked or incorporated into your plans, so while you can plan for a rainy wedding, you'll have a much harder time theming things off of wind. For example, recently, a wedding planner I know had a tent collapse due to wind during wedding setup and had to find a new canopy last minute.
If you'd still like your celebration to be outdoors, which us outdoorsy types tend to do, finding a good shelter is an option to avoid the wind. Many venues will have some sort of a closed-off structure like a grotto or barn that provides shade and wind protection. For my Leach Botanical Garden event, the outdoor shelter happened to be constructed as a three-sided structure where the walls were actually wooden slats, meaning the wind could come and go as it pleased.
But again, we planned for just such an occasion, so out came the wire for string lights, the zip ties for shimmery decorations, and the tape for anything we wanted stuck firmly to the table. We weighted town parts of tablecloths that wanted to start billowing and tied down anything we didn't want the big bad wolf to huff and puff and blow away. And some items simply couldn't be put out as they were impossible to secure.
Thinking ahead on the wind, a good planning tactic is to select an outdoor venue or portion of the venue that needs very little additional decoration to be magical. Leach Botanical Garden is practically cheating with how beautiful it always looks, but you'll find lots of other venues look great no matter what you add.
If you've already got the venue locked in though and now need to retroactively decide how to decorate, like I eluded to, sturdier elements are the way to go. Light strings that can be easily secured or strong table centerpieces will become your friends here, whereas paper and plastic will blow away like Dorothy over the rainbow. Make a plan, and then a backup plan. That's the wedding planning way!
One place you'll find especially susceptible to the wind is the coast. Truly, coastal winds are no joke and can turn even your heavier objects into a hazard or pick up a lovely bride and carry her away like a floofy kite. Just kidding. But I have seen veils fly away and I once caught a jaunty hat as it flew off of a nearlywed's head as they began their walk down the aisle!
Weather forecasts become crucial in the planning stage, and decorations should go minimalistic so as to avoid fighting the powerful breezes the ocean can conjure. Get those sandbags ready to hold arches and other big decorations firmly in place. The same also applies to the wedding party themselves with hair and clothing choices needing to be resilient to rogue zephyrs objecting to the I dos (though sadly sandbags are less effective on the hair and clothes, sorry).
With wind, like rain or heat or cattle stampedes, you needn't worry as long as you do the early prep and are flexible. You'll still have an amazingly special day regardless of how strong the gusts are, but you may have a more interesting story to tell if you forget about the possibility of the wind showing up to attend. But that's why I'm here, to help you plan for the best wedding possible and take some of that stress off your shoulders! If you'd like to use my services for your upcoming wedding, let's talk!
Happy wedding planning!
Andy <3
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