Rain on Your Wedding Day? It Can Be Beautiful
There is a particular kind of dread that arrives about a week before a wedding, when someone checks the forecast and finds rain sitting on the date. We understand it. But of all the things that can happen to a wedding day, weather is the one that most reliably turns out better than feared, and rainy weddings produce some of the most distinctive photographs we make. What separates a lovely wet day from a stressful one is almost entirely preparation.
What rain actually does to photographs
Overcast skies are, in purely technical terms, a large soft light source. Cloud diffuses the sun, removes harsh shadows, evens out skin tones and makes squinting impossible. Photographers spend a great deal of effort trying to recreate that quality of light artificially. On a grey day it is simply there.
Rain also adds things that a clear day cannot. Wet paving reflects colour and light. Water on leaves catches highlights. Storm clouds over a vineyard or a Highveld horizon are far more dramatic than a flat blue sky. And a couple sheltering together under an umbrella has a natural intimacy that is difficult to arrange in sunshine.
Prepare for it in advance
Rain is only a crisis when it is a surprise. A little kit and a few decisions turn it into a change of plan.
- Umbrellas, plural, and matching. Large, plain and in a colour that suits your palette. Clear domed ones are useful because faces stay visible underneath them.
- Wellingtons or flat shoes for the walk to and from portraits, with the good shoes carried.
- Towels at the venue for shoulders, hems and chairs.
- A hem plan. Grass and mud will find a long dress. Deciding in advance that you do not mind is itself a strategy.
- Hairspray and pins, because humidity does what humidity does.
None of this is expensive, and most of it lives in a box in the boot of a car and never gets opened.
Find your covered spots
Every venue has them, and it is worth walking the property with rain specifically in mind. A barn doorway, a covered stoep, a colonnade, a large window in a quiet room, an underground car park with an open end, a chapel interior, even the shelter of a big tree. What you are looking for is somewhere dry with light coming in from one side.
Doorways are particularly good. Standing just inside a large open door puts soft directional light on faces with a dark, uncluttered background behind, which is a classic recipe and it works whether it is drizzling or pouring.
Ask your venue what their wet-weather plan is for the ceremony too, and go and look at the alternative space rather than accepting a description of it. Check where the light comes from, how many people it holds and what the background is behind the ceremony spot.
Watch the gaps
South African rain often arrives in bursts rather than settling in for the day, particularly Highveld summer thunderstorms, which build in the afternoon, arrive with real drama and then move on. It is very common to get a dry window in the early evening after a wet afternoon, and the light after a storm clears can be extraordinary: washed clean, warm and with a sky full of texture.
So keep the plan loose. If we suggest slipping outside for ten minutes because it has eased, it is worth going, even mid-meal. Those ten minutes are often the best of the day.
The mindset, which matters most
We have watched two couples face identical weather and have completely different days. The difference was never the rain. It was whether they had decided in advance that it would not be allowed to spoil anything.
Once the decision is made, rain becomes a shared adventure rather than a disappointment. Guests take their cue from you: if you are laughing under an umbrella, they are laughing too. And there is something worth saying about how these days feel afterwards. A wet wedding is memorable. Nobody tells a story about the weather being fine.
A note on power and dark rooms
Heavy weather sometimes brings power interruptions with it, and a dark reception on top of a wet afternoon is worth a moment's thought. Candles on tables, battery-powered festoon or fairy lights and a torch or two near the steps cost little and change how a dark room reads. Ask your venue whether their generator carries decorative lighting or only the essentials, so you know what you are working with.
A room lit by candlelight, incidentally, is not a compromise. It is warm, intimate and photographs beautifully.
Bring the umbrellas, find the doorway, keep the plan flexible and decide now that a wet day is simply a different day. The couples who do this end up with photographs nobody else at their venue has, and a story they tell for years.
