57 Days to Go: The Weather

Sooo. Lake Tahoe. Totally beautiful? Yes. Great place to go relax/swim/boat in the summer? Yes. Fantastic place to go ski/snowboard/sled in the winter? Absolutely. Great place for an outdoor wedding in the fall? Eh... maybe?

Fall is my favorite season. I love the leaves changing color, the fall smells, the memory of going back to school (what can I say, I'm a nerd!)... Not to mention the fact that "fall" colors make for wonderful backdrops, as well as inspiration for flowers, dresses and other decorations.

Oooh, pretty! (Timber Wolf Creek would like you to know they own the rights to this picture.)

I love these bouquets.

Fall is the best! I especially love the weather -- the cool crisp air... which is such a relief after a long, hot summer.

So when it came time to choose a wedding date, my first thought was, roughly, "Fall!" We initially picked a "sometime in September through November" time frame. This was narrowed down to our actual wedding date by the fact that it was the only date available at my chosen venue. And, October is totally fall, right? So, fall weather. Awesome!

But. Somehow my brain seemed to glaze over the fact that Lake Tahoe is at 6225 feet elevation. It is an "alpine" lake. I'm not sure of the exact definition of "alpine", but I believe the it involves the word "cold" somehow.

See the snow in the mountains? Cold!

If you ask people who live in Tahoe what the weather is typically like in October, they tend to say something along the lines of: "I don't know!" Apparently October weather in Tahoe is unpredictable. Hot, mild, cold, snowing - it could be any of those!

A few weeks ago, I started to get a bit worried about this, so I scoured the web to find information about "typical" October weather. Weather Underground told me that the average high temperature in South Lake Tahoe in October is in the 60s. Phew. I breathed a sigh of relief with that one.

Then, today, I stumbled across another weather related website - Weather.com actually has a Wedding Planner that reviews 30 years worth of data for your wedding month. And, as I had seen before, the average high temperature for our wedding day is 65 degrees! Yay! And, in the past 30 years, 16-17 of the days have been sunny. Yay! It has only rained on 4-5 of the days. Yay!

But. The one thing I had neglected to look at previously was the average low temperature on our wedding day. The average low temperature for our wedding day is 26 degrees. Twenty. Six. That means that if I inadvertantly leave a cocktail outside at some point, I won't have to worry about ice melting. Because that is BELOW FREEZING.

Okay, so maybe not this cold.

But I am a little scared that people will have to dress like this:


During the ceremony time, it should be a balmy mid-60s, so I think it will be okay. But, if you are coming to the wedding: bring some warm clothes!!