Outdoor August wedding...with no Ac?

So air conditioning both tents is $10,000....can you do one for $5000? That way people have SOMEWHERE to go to escape the heat? I understand it's half your budget.....but it might prevent a LOT of misery.

Even if you do that, I'd still move the time of the wedding to an off-peak heat time.

Can you cut your guest list and opt to only have 1 tent? That way you only have to pay for AC for one tent. AC is extremely important, and it is not a wedding luxury.

Unfortunately I agree with everyone here. But since you’ve heard it all before, I won’t say it again. But my question is- you said that it’s a long family tradition and everyone in the family gets married here. So what happened at those weddings?

I, as a guest, would not stay past the ceremony at a wedding in August, outdoors. Especially at 4:30, when the sun is beating down and about to beat directly into the tents as it goes down. Your cake WILL melt- no matter what kind you have. You'll have to wheel it out for pictures then back in the AC house or cooler or something. Your food is so, so much more likely to reach dangerous temperatures- it's nearly impossible to keep large quantities of anything cold enough to be safe (under 40 degrees F) for even an hour in 80 degree or higher heat/humidity. And you'd want to serve cold food, because no one wants to be hot and eat mostly hot food. I would change the time, at minimum, but honestly there's not really anything you can do to "save" or "get through" a wedding that has a very real possibility of heat stroke.

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They probably didnt pick the hottest month of the year. lol

nice to see you

View Quoted Comment Our planner told us to have 2 tents because there isn’t staff to do a tent turnover between the ceremony and reception. So the solution is to have two tents one for the ceremony and one for the reception that is just all set to go.

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I live in the northeast too, and I honestly can't think of anything worse than going to an outdoor wedding in August with no air conditioning. This truly sounds AWFUL.

But to say that because we're telling you AC is needed, we're being "discriminatory against people in different socioeconomic categories", is really a new low. You can't possibly be serious. Keeping your guests in a temperate climate is the most BASIC thing when it comes to having a wedding. It's an absolute given and shouldn't even have to be discussed.

"What’s been other brides/ wedding guest experiences at weddings like this?" NONE. Because I don't know anyone that would do something this awful to their honored guests and therefore have never experienced it.

You made a huge mistake by not looking into the cost of this before putting your deposits down and setting your date.

View Quoted Comment Right, I'm picking up what you're laying down. You said to air condition both tents would be $x. It follows, then, that to air condition only the tent where guests will spend the majority of the time, would be half of that amount. Do that.

View Quoted Comment Can’t you just do the ceremony in the reception tent? That seems like a huge waste of money. Also, the fact that you’ve got a planner but don’t have AC is beyond me.

View Quoted Comment That could also be an idea! The ceremony is only goi g to be 20 minutes half hour at most.

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Seriously!!!! #priorities

View Quoted Comment Listen, I don’t plan weddings everyday. We tried to on our own but learned a planner was going to be a must for a DIY wedding. Sorry I don’t know EVERYTHING about planning a wedding, but I’m at the mercy of what I’m told by the person we hired. I don’t know any better. I trust them. She has said she has done weddings like this before and it’s been fine. The people we are strong the tent from have said the same thing. Why wouldn’t we trust them? Are we just supposed to know?

View Quoted Comment You’re not just supposed to know but when what they’re suggesting is costing you more than your budget or putting your guests health at risk, you need to think to yourself “is this really best or can we do it differently” and you sit people at their tables for the ceremony, you get ONE tent, and you buckle down and get AC for that tent so none of your guests pass out or end up in the hospital.

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Come on, there is no socio-economic discrimination going here at all. When you invite guests their comfort is one your uppermost priorities. Period.

If that is cake and punch at the church with AC mid-afternoon then great! You take your budget, then your guest list and THEN you figure out how to take care of that number of people comfortably.

Logistics is everything. People with tons of money can have great weddings (or not), people with not a lot of money can also have great weddings.

I know the family tradition is strong and I know you said August is the only time your FH can take time off, but if the two don't work well together then you make an alternate plan for what will.

There is no socio-economic discrimination going on here at all. I had 4 daughters and we paid for all of their weddings. Because there were so many of them we had to choose ways to stretch our dollars like rubber bands. We had to choose venues where we brought in our own caterers, DOC, and bartenders. I didn't leave any of their reception venues til at least 2 a.m because we had to set it all up, decorate, tear it all down and clean it up. Those were the logistics we had to choose to fit the budget and guest list we had. So we did.

Your problem doesn't come from socio-economics, it comes from logistics.

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The DOC and the tent people are making money off your wedding. They will tell you what you want to hear. If she has done weddings like this before she has done some weddings where the guests were very uncomfortable. No one is going to go up to the planner and complain.

OK, so bottom line, CAN you move the wedding to at least 6 pm?

View Quoted Comment If you read my initial post, I said that in the beginning, we were specifically told by the tent company that they NEVER use ACs for their summer weddings and they’ve never had a complaint. We were assured by them it would be fine. We believed them. Same with our planner. She said she’s done this before and everything worked out. It wasn’t until after we committed to everything that guests seemed unsure about it. We didn’t budget for it because we were assured we wouldn’t need to.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, I haven't read every single post but on the first page no one has - what about fans? Like those really big, sort of industrial ones? Maybe you could look into renting a few? I can't imagine it would cost thousands.

It's definitely not ideal (strongly blowing everyone's perfectly done hair and whatever else), but it's better than nothing cooling the tents at all.

View Quoted Comment Well when people just assume I can pull money from out of no where and just magically change my venue, and then get mad at me when I say that’s not an option,yeah that feels discriminatory.

View Quoted Comment Who would complain to the rental company though? No one is going to complain to the rental company. No one is going to complain to the planner. No one is even going to complain to the bride and groom in most cases. They’ll just leave when they’re at the point of exhaustion. What will you do if someone ends up hospitalized because you chose to listen to the planner instead of everyone else?

View Quoted Comment Well wouldn’t it make more sense for them to upsell the AC? Wouldn’t they make MORE money off that? That’s why we believed them. They’d be making less money so why would they push for that option.