‘It Was Pretty Miserable’: Planning a Wedding Amid Climate Change

When Coy Boggler and Annie Wall started planning their intimate backyard wedding in Phoenix earlier this year, they didn’t know that by July, a record-breaking heat wave would settle over the city for 31 straight days.

Mr. Boggler, 47, and Ms. Wall, 41, had rented a tent to keep their guests cool and decided to test it out with three air-conditioning units running, but the temperature inside the tent wouldn’t dip below 93 degrees.

“It was pretty miserable,” said Mr. Boggler, a firefighter and paramedic in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

The couple were at a loss for what to do when they ran into Chuck Montgomery, a retired deputy fire chief of Glendale, Ariz., and an acquaintance. Mr. Montgomery invited them to move the ceremony to the Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting in Phoenix, where Mr. Montgomery is the executive director.

They married on July 8 at the museum in front of FDNY Rescue 4, a fire rescue truck from Queens that was salvaged from 9/11. Their 21 guests, including immediate family and members of Mr. Boggler’s ladder crew, attended the ceremony. Some then returned to Mr. Boggler’s house for a reception with catered barbecue.

“I’m happy we didn’t elect to stay in the tent,” Mr. Boggler said.

Couples planning weddings this summer have had to contend with a slate of extreme weather conditions, from flooding and unrelenting heat to poor air quality. Some couples have chosen to stay indoors while others moved dates to months with cooler temperatures or outside wildfire season. While this year has seemed particularly acute, extreme weather is only expected to intensify, experts say.

“We’re going to consistently see broken records for warmest summer, warmest year,” said Mr. Marshall Shepherd, the director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia. “That’s the reality that we’re in.”

This summer’s record-breaking weather has tested the entire wedding industry on how to adapt to a changing climate.

Some event planners have implemented mitigation practices for those having outdoor weddings, like ordering hand-held water spritzers, paper fans and parasols. Kawania Wooten, a principal consultant for Howerton+Wooten Events in Bowie, Md., now sets up “comfort stations” for guests complete with eye drops for poor air quality and sunscreen. Grant and Susan Allendorf, the owners of the Mansfield Barn in Jericho, Vt., retrofitted their barn space with air-conditioning.

Extreme weather — and heat in particular — now factors into almost every aspect of summer wedding planning, from picking flowers that won’t wilt (no hydrangeas) to choosing a cake frosting that won’t melt (no buttercream).

Fall and spring may soon replace summer as the peak wedding season. Jamie Chang, a wedding planner in the Bay Area who specializes in destination weddings, said she has noticed clients trending away from summer over the last five years. She said that certain outdoor locations like Palm Springs, Calif., where temperatures reached around 120 degrees in July, shouldn’t even be considered in the summer.

Tiffany Boykins, the owner of Events By Tiffany, in Atlanta, said she didn’t have a single client this summer who opted for a wedding outside. Even cocktail hours, which may have previously taken place at a venue’s balcony or in a garden, have been moved indoors, she said.

Emma and Tyler Young looked exclusively at indoor venues for their July wedding in Atlanta, where they live. They didn’t want to worry about having a backup plan in case of heat, storms or unhealthy air quality.

“We wanted to be able to comfortably invite children and seniors,” said Ms. Young, 23.

Sheila and Evan Styduhar pushed their wedding in Lake Tahoe, Nev., from August to October 2022 after reading about the wildfires there the previous summer. “Even if there weren’t fires close to where our wedding was going to be, we didn’t want to divert resources and bring tourists to the area when the area is trying to survive,” said Ms. Styduhar, 32.

At the suggestion of their wedding planner, they purchased a wedding insurance policy that covered extreme weather conditions, including floods, blizzards and hurricanes. “It’s not something I ever would have thought of,” Ms. Styduhar said.

Crystal Egger, a meteorologist and co-founder of Monarch, a climate consultancy company based in San Diego, advised that couples planning an outdoor wedding check typical weather trends and have a tent as backup. “This is not the same climate our grandparents were married in,” she said.

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