What to do if it rains on your wedding day

When a couple starts imagining their wedding, a fairly specific version of the day almost always appears: an outdoor ceremony, cocktails in the sun, beautiful late-afternoon light and every plan working exactly as intended. But in Gipuzkoa we know that the weather has quite a personality, which means one of the questions we hear most before a wedding is very simple:

What do we do if it rains?

The short answer is that a rainy wedding can still be a wonderful wedding. The slightly longer answer is that it's worth organising a few things well so the rain doesn't end up dictating the whole day.

Don't try to fight the weather

The worst-case scenario probably isn't rain, but spending the whole wedding wondering whether it will stop. Constantly checking a weather app, shifting the schedule every twenty minutes or trying to keep an outdoor ceremony when everything suggests it won't be possible usually creates far more tension than the rain itself.

If the day looks tricky, our advice is to accept it as soon as possible and work with that scenario. A wedding still has speeches, hugs, nerves, reunions, relatives who haven't seen each other in a long time, friends celebrating together and probably a packed dance floor at the end of the night. None of that disappears because it's raining outside.

At DOVA Studio we approach wedding photography from a natural, documentary perspective, adapting to what happens rather than forcing situations. You can find out more about the way we work.

Always have a plan B you genuinely like

When you visit a venue for your wedding, don't just ask where the cocktail hour takes place in good weather; also ask exactly what happens if it rains.

Where would the ceremony be held? Where would guests be during the cocktail hour? Is there enough indoor space? Does it have natural light? Can roughly the same plan be kept, or does everything change completely?

This is especially important at venues where much of the appeal lies in the gardens or an outdoor ceremony. Plan B shouldn't feel like the place you get sent to when the good plan fails; it should be a space where you can also picture yourselves celebrating your wedding.

That's why we love venues that work well both indoors and out. When the interior has a personality of its own, it stops feeling like an emergency solution and simply becomes another way of living the day.

Don't make decisions too early

A week before the wedding it's quite normal to start checking the forecast several times a day, and it's also quite normal for that forecast to change. Especially here.

A rain icon doesn't necessarily mean eight hours of non-stop rain; it might mean a twenty-minute shower, rain in the morning and sun in the afternoon, or exactly the opposite.

That's why it rarely makes sense to change all your plans too many days in advance. Have the alternative plan ready, talk to the venue and your suppliers, but try to make the big decisions when the forecast is a bit more reliable.

Rain doesn't mean we can't take photos outside

This is probably one of the questions couples ask us most. If it rains, it doesn't necessarily mean the whole wedding has to be photographed indoors.

Small dry windows often appear during the day, and ten or fifteen minutes can be more than enough to step out, walk a little and take a few photos without turning it into a shoot. And if there's a light drizzle, we can work with that too.

An umbrella, a wet street, reflections on the ground or softer light can create photographs completely different from those of a sunny day. The key is not to build the whole wedding around getting one particular shot: if the opportunity comes, we take it; if it doesn't, we look for something else.

In our photography projects you can see how each wedding ends up with its own atmosphere depending on the place, the light and what happens on the day.

A grey sky isn't necessarily bad news for photos

There's an idea that you need sunshine for good photos, but that's not the case. In fact, an overcast sky can offer very pleasant light: shadows are softer, we can shoot in almost any direction and we avoid some of the harsh contrasts that appear in the middle of a very sunny day.

Rain also changes the look of places. Stone darkens, colours become richer, reflections appear and many streets take on a completely different atmosphere. In places like Hondarribia, Donostia or any of Gipuzkoa's towns with an old quarter, a wet street can be especially beautiful.

We're not saying you should hope for rain, simply that a grey day doesn't automatically mean worse photographs.

Umbrellas can help, but there's no need to fill the wedding with them

If the forecast really does predict rain, it's worth having a few umbrellas ready. We prefer large, simple umbrellas that let people walk comfortably and don't draw too much attention in the photos.

There's no need to buy a hundred identical umbrellas for all your guests, unless it's genuinely part of your plans. Often it's enough to have a few available for moving between spaces and, for couple portraits, one or two umbrellas are usually more than enough.

Think especially about getting from place to place

Rain starts to become uncomfortable when it forces lots of people to move from one place to another without a clear alternative. For example, if the ceremony is in one building, the cocktail hour a few minutes' walk away and the banquet in yet another space, it's worth thinking about what would happen if it were pouring at that moment.

Is there transport? Can guests wait under cover? Is access easy? Will older guests have to walk a long way?

They're not very romantic questions when you're planning a wedding, but sorting them out in advance can make a huge difference to how the day is experienced.

Leave some slack in the schedule

Rainy days tend to slow some things down. People take a little longer to leave the church, umbrellas come out, you have to wait for a car to arrive, or it might be wise to delay a departure by ten minutes because of a heavy shower.

If the whole plan is timed to the minute, any small change starts to pile up delays. We prefer schedules with some breathing room, and not only when it rains.

A wedding is far more enjoyable when there isn't a constant feeling of having to rush on to the next thing.

There's no need to sacrifice the dress for a photo

It may seem obvious, but it's worth saying. If it's pouring outside, muddy and cold, we don't think it makes sense to make you go out for half an hour just because photos were planned in a particular spot.

We can wait, we can change the location, we can take photos indoors or we can simply skip that photo.

Our job is to adapt to what's happening, not to turn the wedding into a photo production. If stepping out for five minutes is worth it and you feel like it, out we go; but if it means getting cold, soaked or worrying about the dress for the rest of the day, there are probably better options.

Interiors tell your wedding story too

Sometimes, when we think of wedding photos, we automatically picture gardens, streets or landscapes, but many of the most important moments happen indoors. The preparations, a conversation with your parents, the ceremony, the speeches, a long, lingering meal or the start of the party don't need good weather.

What's more, an interior with personality can become an important part of your wedding story. So when we photograph a rainy wedding, we don't constantly try to hide the fact that we're inside; if the space is beautiful, we want it to appear too.

The same goes for video. The rain, the sound, the reflections and the atmosphere can also become part of the story, instead of something we have to hide. You can see some of our wedding video projects.

And if it rains throughout the whole wedding, that's fine too

It can happen. That perfect twenty-minute window when the rain stops just as we wanted to go out doesn't always appear, and even so, the wedding still happens.

Perhaps the light indoors is different, perhaps the guests are closer together, or perhaps the cocktail hour ends up creating scenes that wouldn't have happened if everyone were spread across a huge garden.

Every wedding finds its own shape, and very often the circumstances that seemed like a problem beforehand end up being part of what makes it different.

So, what should you do if it rains on your wedding day?

Have a plan B you genuinely like, talk to your venue before the wedding day, leave some slack in the schedule and avoid rushing into decisions just because an app shows a rain icon.

And when the day comes, try to stop looking at the sky.

If we can go outside, we will. If beautiful light appears, we'll make the most of it. If it rains, we'll work with the rain. And if everything has to happen indoors, that's where we'll find the photos.

Because in the end, your photos shouldn't just remember what the weather was like; they should remember how you lived your wedding while everything else was happening outside.