Anyone who has spent much time in Central New York  can tell you that summer storms can been quite nasty, with strong winds, hail and violent thunderstorms.

Should you be concerned? Well, yes, maybe you should.

Consider this real life example of what happened during a recent wedding during a rainy weekend in July 2006 at The Fontainebleau Inn, Alpine NY.

Storm CloudsIt was a normal enough afternoon, although quite hot and muggy. The ceremony took place at Sage Chapel, Cornell University and no rain fell before, during or immediately after the ceremony. All was well.

Once the guests and wedding party arrived at The Fontaineblau Inn, the cocktail hour proceeded without incident and eveyone was having a grand time. The DJ was playing beautiful music outside on the tent covered patio while the guests were enjoying hors d’oeuvres, enjoying the beautiful lake view. A few rumblings of thunder were barely audible in the distance. But the sky had a foreboding darkness which was heading towards the wedding reception.

An announcment for guests to take their seats inside was made, in preparation for the Formal Introductions. 30 seconds after the announcement, a horrific clash of thunder and lightning ushered in the beginning of an extremely strong thunderstorm. Still, at this point there was no cause for alarm as the guests were safely inside the building.

The introductions were about to begin and as the announcement was made, another clash of thunder occurred followed by a few seconds of flickering lights and then a complete power outage.

This could have been the end of the story, a ruined wedding recption caused by a power outage… no music, no lights, cold food. But this reception had a happy ending because The Fontainebleau Inn had an automatic power generator that switched on within 5 seconds of the power outage. In fact, none of the guests even knew that it was the generator providing the electricity. So what could have been a disaster turned out to be a non-event and the remainder of the reception proceeded without any further interruptions.

The moral of the story is to investigate the location of your reception and consider the worse case scenario to see how well your choice of venue will be able to handle a “worse case scenario”. It could make the difference between a wedding to be remembered and a wedding you’ll never forget.