3 weeks ago on Wednesday, May 7th—I was in a bit of a tizzy placing a last-minute order for big clear umbrellas online via Walmart.
There were hundreds of other people with the clear umbrellas in their carts as well, because the forecast for Friday, May 9th (our wedding day—and probably theirs, too! lol) was 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 50% chance of rain. EEEK!
It had taken everything I had in me to not check the weather app 24/7 every single day before our wedding once the 10-day forecast was live.
Because let’s face it—as much as you want to be totally go with the flow, if you have hopes of an outdoor ceremony, it’s going to be a little bit of a bummer to move it indoors.
Since it was less than 2 days away from the wedding and the forecast was pretty confident that rain would happen—I decided to look up different interpretations of what it would mean if it did end up raining on our wedding day to help reframe.
And some of the things I found were pretty freakin’ good!
Here are a few favs:
“Why rain is considered good luck on your wedding day:
- A wet knot is harder to untie. In many cultures, a wedding is symbolized by tying a knot. Rain is thought to strengthen that knot.
- Good omen for growth. Just as rain helps crops and flowers grow, it’s seen as a metaphor for the growth your relationship will experience in the years ahead.
- A reminder to surrender control. Weather is one of the few things couples can’t control—and embracing it gracefully is a powerful act of trust, flexibility, and presence on your big day (and in your marriage!)”
I loveeeeed these.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe that rain or no rain has to be a “sign” of ANYTHING! It can absolutely just be random weather. AND YET—the meaning we assign can also help us frame things in a way that feels more helpful, if we so choose.
I think the piece on surrendering control was probably the most important lesson of all.
Knowing that weather is something that’s fully out of our control, and realizing that whatever happens we will be (more than) okay was important to keep in mind.
We could only control so much. We got the umbrellas. We did an indoor and outdoor rehearsal at our venue (which we chose because they have both indoor and outdoor spaces). We set a deadline on wedding day with our event coordination team to decide if we would be indoor or outdoor.
And then the rest was up to the universe to decide!
Here’s what ended up happening—it DID rain on our wedding day! Poured in the morning, in fact. I woke up to the 55 degrees and rainy weather that the forecast had said.
But then I also woke up to a text from our event coordinator saying “check your favorite weather app, I think we may be in the clear!”
Nate and I laughed to ourselves and were like “is she crazy?!” because it looked so gloomy. But sure enough, the forecast did say that things would likely be clearing up later in the day.
So we moved on with the day as scheduled—a breakfast and coffee date, him dropping me off at the venue, and each of us doing our own getting ready routines with our loved ones before the first look.
I remember when me and my girlfriends started looking outside and seeing the rainy patio area start drying up and we all squealed!!! I couldn’t believe the weather actually turned around.
And the photos and ceremony all worked out to be outdoors, as we had hoped it would.
After the ceremony I kept saying “I just can’t believe how the weather turned around!”
Nate and I both felt (and feel) very lucky and grateful for how the day played out.
And I won’t ever know how I would have responded if it DID end up raining all day, and we DID need to move things indoors. I’m sure I would have felt disappointed, but eventually shifted to “hey. what can ya do?”
Which is the main point of this long story—WHAT CAN YA DO??!!!!
There is only so much we can do. We can do our best. We can shift our perspective. We can set up our environment so things have their best chance of going in our favor. We can take actions that help move us towards our goals.
But we can’t control outcomes. We can’t control weather. We can’t control someone else’s actions.
Really reminding myself of this has helped me so much. Because as a recovering control freak who DID want to control everything around her (still working on it…), I am really freaking proud of how I showed up during my wedding week and wedding day.
It sure isn’t easy to surrender control and let things happen as they will happen. But knowing when to lean back and trust the process instead of trying to be the puppet-master of everything around us is crucial.
I’m sure this will be a lesson I keep learning over and over and over again, and my hope is that in sharing it, that it inspires you to find an area of your life to surrender control in, too. Even if just for one day—and then rinse and repeat.
