Rain or Shine: How to Outsmart the Weather on Your Wedding Day with Andrew Leavitt
Can you really predict wedding day weather?
Weather is one of the biggest stressors for engaged couples—especially those planning outdoor celebrations. But what if you could actually plan for it?
Andrew Leavitt of Ironic Concierge Event Meteorology joins us to explain how personalized weather forecasting is changing the wedding game. With a background in concert safety and large-scale event logistics, Andrew and his team of meteorologists offer real-time, concierge-level weather insights designed specifically for weddings.
In this episode, we dig into what most weather apps get wrong, how far out you can actually forecast conditions, and how understanding wind, heat, and even cicadas can help couples and planners avoid last-minute disasters. Andrew breaks down the difference between climatology and meteorology, how to interpret weather data the right way, and why just a little weather knowledge can make your wedding safer and less stressful.
Whether you're planning a tented reception, dreaming of vineyard vows, or just really hoping it won’t rain, this episode is packed with insights that can help you stay one step ahead of Mother Nature.
Highlights:
- What a “concierge meteorology service” actually does for weddings
- Why checking your weather app too early can cause unnecessary panic
- The difference between climate trends and day-of weather
- How to know if your wedding venue is prone to flooding or wind
- The surprising timeline accuracy of weather models
- A client who requested cicada research before their wedding
- What you should ask your planner about rain plans, flooring, and more
- How high heel “sink tests” became part of their weather data process
Planning a wedding? Learn how to weather-proof your big day (literally) with science-backed strategies that go far beyond “hope for sunshine.”
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Connect with Kevin & August:
Transcript
Alright folks, welcome to another episode of Now That I'm Gage, How Do I Get Married? We have the one and only Andrew Levitt with us. He's from ironicreports.com. And tell us a little bit about ironicreports.com.
Andrew Leavitt (:⁓
Of course, appreciate both of you having me here. Ironic Work Concierge Event Meteorology Service, but we focus really on the wedding market. ⁓ My background is in producing like large scale festivals, 40,000 person festivals with all the big headlining talent. And then you have to make sure that it doesn't rain ⁓ or there's thunder or lightning and you need to get everyone evacuated, which is fun until the tears start coming from the fans. And then the managers and labels start calling.
August Yocher (:you
Thank
Andrew Leavitt (:Uh,
when the pandemic hit, uh, basically the only events that were legally allowed to happen outside were weddings. So we kind of said, okay, well, we have a team full of meteorologists. Uh, we know a bunch of wedding planners cause I was, uh, I was a wedding DJ back when I was, you know, from 13 to one in one. Um, and it was in a time of like dual CD players and button covers and bad tuxedo vests. was not a good look for anyone involved. Uh,
August Yocher (:Hey!
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
No.
Andrew Leavitt (:And basically called up all the wedding planners I knew in Boston and said, Hey, are you, you know, are you all doing these events outside? Is this happening this summer? And it was micro weddings, all outdoors, limited rentals. You know, it was like the perfect situation or jokingly say perfect storm for everything that could be bad to happen. So we started the company as a pandemic pivot. And then when
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:pandemic kind of ended and everything started going back outside. It turned into the wedding industry was on this boom of people really wanting to experience connection with their family, friends. They wanted to do the tents. I think the style and aesthetic kind of kept up after the pandemic where people were still looking for that outdoor vibe. And we came into the market as the sort of large scale concierge event meteorology service for a lot of the wedding planners and a lot of couples out there.
So we started five years ago and ⁓ so far it's been a blast because we get to see a very different side of the event world that I think I had forgotten about past like my last wedding and when I hung up my headphones.
Kevin Dennis (:I love it. And we all, everybody in the wedding industry can either attribute themselves to either starting out because they were a couple and got married or they were a wedding DJ. So that's pretty much, yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty much everyone's story. So, all right, before we get into serious questions, we've been debating at our office. How did you come up? How did you come up with the name of your company?
Andrew Leavitt (:Yes.
August Yocher (:Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:I would love to hear the two different theories you have.
Kevin Dennis (:You
August Yocher (:Okay, yes, because we were talking about it today and I wasn't sure now that you said that you started kind of more on the event side and kind of saw a need and filled the need in the wedding industry, but ⁓ I was looking at your website and I was like, ironic. That feels like the Alanis Morissette song when she sings, it's like rain on your wedding day. Is that what it is?
Andrew Leavitt (:your descent.
That is where it came from. ⁓
In hindsight, if I ever start another company, it will be like whatthebusinesses.com. So it should be weddingweather.com or like anything for SEO. ⁓ We've had planners and I will not mention their names, but I hope that they listen to this and feel a little bit of like stomach curl shame who have worked for years.
Kevin Dennis (:Hahaha
Andrew Leavitt (:And then I made a comment or a post about like Alanis Morissette. They're like, ⁓ wait, that's how, really? And I'm like, yep, that is it. It took you that long to figure out. So it's just a play on Alanis Morissette. Originally.
Kevin Dennis (:Damn we're good August that's what we figured
August Yocher (:Yeah,
Kevin Dennis (:it out
August Yocher (:immediately I was like, that's what it is, isn't it? Because if it's not, then you should definitely say it was because that is just beautiful, fantastic.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:It's
the worst. The worst part now is that like people will mix up our name and they'll think it's iconic. And I'm like, what is it about like rain on your wedding day? So it's been a whole struggle. It was the, it's the best worst name I think we could have ever come up with. Uh, and so far we've had some fun with it. We are, are actively just waiting for the day that, uh, we'll get like a cease and desist from a lot of small set in our team. Uh, when that happens, we're, we're going to stick with it.
Kevin Dennis (:Bye.
Yeah.
No!
There you go. Well, all right. And I chimed in with the... Yeah. No, that was exactly my thought. And I said, don't you think? I was trying... Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. All right. So can you explain to us what Concierge Weather Service is for us people that don't know?
August Yocher (:I think it's clever. I like it.
Andrew Leavitt (:⁓ What was your thought for a theory?
August Yocher (:And then I lost it, yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:good.
Yeah,
Well, I think that the biggest thing that we kind of run into as like, and this is society is we never realized when we got our iPhones or we got our first smartphone, the weather app was really like the first app that everyone was very cool with, like giving their personal information to, giving the zip code being like, you can track me wherever I go. You're going to tell me something that I need. And the weather apps, for the most part, have lived in this world where especially
Right now it's turning more, it's relevant because a lot of, through political reasons, there's a lot less funding towards figuring out all of the weather data that is out there and then organizing it and sharing it. But all the weather apps basically run off of the National Weather Service's APIs. So they all come out, every couple of years you get like a very cool one and a new one and it has a great user experience and it has new colors or it tells you funny jokes like Carrot, think is one that just like makes fun of the weather that day.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:Um, but they all provide weather information for what you should be doing in the next three to four hours. But it's not something that you're thinking about. Well, first off, it's not something that you should be looking at when you are, you know, trying to plan something out 18 months ahead of time. And you're worried about invitations, wedding dress, cake, um, what the, you know, partner one and partner two are going to be wearing. And you're in a head space where it's like, well, we know we want to get married here, but we didn't think about the fact that like,
you have a situation where someone sweats through their shirt, ⁓ you know, two or three times because they chose a heavy wool suit. So we come in and we sort of look at all of the historical weather data and we point out all the things that people don't really think about. So if it is, you know, some situations where you'll have wind speeds that are over 25 miles an hour consistently at a venue because of wind tunnels or you're going to have just the area that it's in ⁓ and someone in the wedding party wants to have their hair down and they are adamant about that.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:But then during the wedding day, they realized that their hair must go up. And that adds an extra hour of time that they're trying to figure out what hairstyle should I pick from this Pinterest list of 85 hairstyles. And I said, I kind of liked that will mess up the entire timeline of the day. So we started digging into like every cause and effect that there is from something that's weather related.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:extra humidity, is that gonna be for makeup, is it gonna be for cosmetics or is it hair? Or do we also dive into buttercream versus fondant and the videos of cakes falling over and like the structural integrity of. Yeah, it's a real, it really is. Everything kind of connects to itself. So that's where we started. And then when we started really growing and working more with planners and working more with couples, the day of.
Kevin Dennis (:guys.
August Yocher (:It's like a snowball effect.
Andrew Leavitt (:turned into a very big situation for us where we start a week out. So we're tracking, shouldn't say the day of yet, but we start if you are in a situation where it's going to be say a Wednesday load in Thursday, tents is going to start going to be built Friday, tent, all the installs are going to happen. Florals are going to go in flooring has already been down all these things, but we know that it's going to rain on Tuesday and all of sudden you're about to drive onto someone's backyard with a forklift.
and that is going to rip up the backyard, the homeowner, exactly, might be a little bit perturbed, we'll say, when all of a sudden they lift the flooring and the grass is completely rotted and there's tire marks in the yard. And if that is the parents of the couple, you know, there's things and people will be upset. So we really started looking at all of the same sort of snowball effects that will happen from a week out before the event to the actual event day. And it really is
Kevin Dennis (:In sync.
Andrew Leavitt (:I think the real value for what we do is a lot of times is you will have bad weather. There's like a one day I'll have enough data to say it rains at X amount of weddings, X amount of precipitation per hour or whatever it is. But when it comes down to it, if there's a chance that it's going to be raining at three in the afternoon ⁓ and that's when everyone's going to do family portraits and the planner is on site or the family and you've got five people looking at five different weather apps all.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:taking creative liberty to make their app more appealing to the market so it might have better information or perceived better information. ⁓ You then get into that sort of situation where everyone's comparing notes and it turns into fights and drama and like we've heard all the horror stories or we've seen it person. So our whole thing is we have a team of meteorologists, all they do is they sit at the weather desk, they look at the weather and then they report to the people on site.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:This is what's gonna happen. You've got 15 minutes, get outside, take your photos. You've got the rain that's about to start coming in and there's lightning strikes within 15 miles. It's time to tell all your guests, maybe the after dinner dessert, fire pit is not the safest place for everyone to be right now. Let's pull them all inside. So we're just there to kind of take the pressure off of all of these questions. And it's turned into, like the use cases,
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:keep on growing because people ask us for the weirdest things. ⁓ And because of that, we have lot more fun with it. We did research on cicadas this year in Chicago, because someone saw a meme of a cicada in a glass of Chardonnay. ⁓ And they freaked out. They called the planner. The planner was like, I need to know everything about cicadas. So we were on with, ⁓ I'll call them a bug specialist because I don't know the proper term.
⁓ from the University of Chicago for like three hours learning everything about cicadas and then figuring it out to give a report to the planner. ⁓ So it's a weird, weird role of science meets events.
Kevin Dennis (:Wow.
Yeah, it's almost like in the middle. I was going to say you said you were talking about the apps and that's one of the biggest arguments my wife and I have is because her app will say one thing and mine says the other. And so we're always arguing about which one is going to be right when it comes to the weather.
Andrew Leavitt (:It's it's brutal because like and everyone asked me to like which app to use and I was like, I don't use them anymore. Like I am and I I am spoiled. I have a business partner. Yeah. Well, I will say this I have learned my team of meteorologists I do not ask dumb questions to anymore as much. ⁓ My business partner Jack is like he's screwed for the rest of his life. I'm up like every weekend. I'm just like, so if you were in a book a tea time, what time would
August Yocher (:Hmm.
Well you have a whole team of meteorologists, you don't need to use an app!
Kevin Dennis (:Hehehe
Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:But, I'm not a meteorologist, I always try to express that as my meteorologist or the meteorologist on our team, I should say, are so, so, so much smarter than I could ever be or possibly ever, even if I studied for the rest of my life, I'll never be able to understand what comes naturally to them. For me, my background was concert safety. So it was, we have 40,000 people, 250 stagehands. We've got headlining artists with insurance.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:policies on their hands because of the way play the guitar. We need to think about all of this and now that we know that there's lightning, what's the risk going to be? So the example I use for that is if you ever see the videos of Taylor Swift when she's singing out in the rain, there is a same meteorologist that worked with Ironic, worked for Taylor Swift and her tours. And they are making the call to the team and saying there is no lightning within 20 miles. So it's safe for her to be out there singing in the rain for the next three hours.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:But if there was one lightning strike within 20 miles, everyone would be on standby. The second it got to 15 miles, production manager is on the side of the stage getting ready to pull her off the stage. And at eight miles, she would have been out of those videos. And so there is a team focused on just where that one lightning strike is and if everyone in the stadium is gonna see the show they came to see. So it's all about really safety for me. And then Jack, he's our weather, he's our meteorologist, he's the weather side.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:It's definitely rubbed off on me in a very nice way, but he's brilliant and I admit that I'm not.
Kevin Dennis (:Love it.
August Yocher (:Those are
just like crazy logistics. Like, you know, someone, I mean, we are in events, of course, but concerts, like something you wouldn't even think about. You're just like, oh, Taylor Swift just out running in the rain. You're not thinking like about the safety component of it all.
Andrew Leavitt (:Well, and even the planners we work with, and this is like for all the couples getting married, and I always am like excited I can share new ways that people have asked us to think about stuff. ⁓ We have a client or we've had clients that don't like the their clients don't like the look of sunglasses and photos. And I think we've all seen sunglasses in the photos will ruin it. It's like you can have the perfect shot and you got, you know, Uncle Jim in the background with like giant aviators on it's not gonna look. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Hehehehe
Andrew Leavitt (:And we've done sun studies and shade studies to basically look at the type of structures that are going to be put up, which way the basically the aisle would be set, which way people are going to be looking out and how to set that up so you won't need sunglasses no matter if you're at the altar or if you're sitting in the crowd. And that is something that we will do 18 months before the actual event. And then from that point, it's OK, well, are we going to do a raised altar? Are we going to be doing?
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:stadium style seating with like a lip up for everyone so they get a better view of the couple. Like there's a thousand different design things that go into that, but it starts with that first, well, what's the position? So there's a lot that, yeah, a lot of people are using it, I think in a very fun way using our services.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
August Yocher (:Well, I think you answered one of my questions because Kevin and I were kind of deliberating earlier today and we were like, you know, we've never really heard of someone who can, you know, sort of predict the weather that far in advance. But obviously, weather is, I think, one of the biggest stressors of the day. Back when I worked in venues, we always said, that's the one thing we can't control on your wedding day. We can't manage is the weather. We're not God, right? Like, we can't do that.
Kevin Dennis (:It's amazing.
Andrew Leavitt (:Yeah, we.
We can't control either,
don't worry.
August Yocher (:No, yeah, but at least like, you know, there's a plan. So, ⁓ well, I guess a two part question, like how far in advance can you really, you know, make that prediction and try to give a clear answer to couples? Because I feel like, I mean, obviously we're getting this trend of short term bookings, but there are still plenty of couples who book, you know, years in advance or, you know, like you were saying 18 months in advance. But also, I'm also kind of curious to know
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
August Yocher (:Do you get a lot of couples who come find you prior to booking their venue or is it mostly after and then you're kind of creating a plan A, plan B, plan C, just kind of based on what the weather is looking like that day?
Andrew Leavitt (:Yeah.
So it's a multi-part answer. And the best way of saying it is there's two different ways to think about it. There's climatology, which is, you can describe it as your personality. And then there's meteorology, which is your mood. So someone can be a great person and you love their personality. And 90 % of the time when you hang out with them, you're happy to be around them. And then their mood can change for 10 % of the time. And you're like, that is the worst person I've ever met in the world. I know.
t. And we looked back at from: Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:major storm that passed through their exact location, where their home was, and what could possibly happen. So when you get all that information, you can start making those fields like or ideas of what to expect. And that's where you get wind speed and the average temperature and the sunrise, sunset, and if there's, you know, a chance of rain or a chance of downpours. And you can really give those ideas. You can't say at three o'clock it will rain. ⁓ The only place that like you can kind of say that actually I shouldn't say is
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:South Florida, you can be like between four and there's like a pretty good chance you're gonna get some rain. ⁓ But we will start that process and a lot of couples come to us because they will have three different locations. it's always so unique to me or interesting how people choose where they're gonna get married. I'm not married so I find it like super interesting where it's, well we went on vacation here.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:Their grandparent has a farmhouse that we, you know, they used to visit when they were children. They want to do it there. And then like, yeah, we got recommended to this place out in like Montauk. So you've got three different locations all within say New York and three different times a year that that place is the right vibe for whatever they're looking for. So it could be Hudson Valley in the fall and they want to know what the foliage is going to be like and when the leads are going to be turning or they want to know what Montauk is going to be like in July and if it's going to rain that weekend.
⁓ so we'll start analyzing all of these different points, ⁓ and then kind of present them with a brief, ⁓ I wish it was more like cool and sexy on how we present the information, but it is a very long written, ⁓ document that Jack puts together by hand. he does all the research and it reads like a weather report. Like it is very, he'll, he's not, ⁓ his bedside manner is very much that of fact.
Kevin Dennis (:Wow.
Andrew Leavitt (:⁓ so I always relate them to like, Sheldon and the big bang theory. Like if you asked him to tell you like when you're wedding for you, it would be like Sheldon being like, okay, and this is going to happen or this will, or could, ⁓ and then the other side of that with weather apps, ⁓ and AI happening and the way the world is turning everyone's like, I want like, I want the 14 day weather app. I want the 16 day and I'm going to turn the AI like, you know,
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:I'm going to turn the AI knob up and we're just going to superpower this forecast. And everyone in meteorology is like, it just doesn't work like that. And every other company kind of says, oh, well, we're going to figure out how to make it work. And we're going to raise tons of money and do tons of things about behind the scenes on that. But the truth is if you're, you get one day basically for every 10 years of data and research for the forecast. So right now we're at like 90%. You started to go back around 70 to
I'll say like 70%, seven days out. When you get to about five days out, it goes up to about like an 80 to 85 % on some of the models. When you're within ⁓ three days, you can get above 90 depending where you are. If there's multiple airports and more ⁓ services that are collecting weather data. ⁓ So we always try to say like, we won't start telling you the real forecast more than a week out. ⁓ In 10 years from now, we will say, yep, we're at eight days guys, like this is exciting.
And 10 years after that, like we just hit 10, like 10 days out, we can start giving this. So for the next 20 years, we always say seven days out. And that really gives people, I think enough time to, as far as, you know, your tent plans, your rain plan calls generally should be on like a Thursday or Wednesday. And that gives you the time to really still make all the choices. You can get 150 umbrellas if you need to in 72 hours. It might be a little bit more expensive than if you ordered them the week before.
but you can find them somewhere in the world. ⁓ So for us, that's the big side of giving people the opportunity to make the changes they need to make.
Kevin Dennis (:I love it. All right, so how can couples interpret weather data and put it to use?
Andrew Leavitt (:I think the best way that couples can do this is don't think about your weather app like it is a fast quick three seconds. I'm going to pull my phone out. It's going to tell me I'm going put it back in my pocket. Most of the weather apps as much as I want to like trash on them for not having all the information they do have a ton of information in there. So the best way is if you think about it and you see that there is a 80 % to 90 % chance that we're going to have rain on Saturday.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Andrew Leavitt (:And your first thing is you pick up your phone, you look at it, and then all of a sudden you say 90 % chance of rain and you freak out. That is where like the panic and the everything kind of plays into. But if you take like one extra second and you click the button that says precipitation rates and you see there is a 90 % chance that at four in the morning we are going to get, and then you look at the amount, you know, less than a 10th of inch of drizzle that will still trigger it to say you're going to get a 90 % chance of rain.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:most apps. I don't think most couples are worried about what's going to happen at four in the morning with a drizzle on their wedding day when the wedding's at 6 p.m. or 5 p.m. So that will save so much stress for everyone in the world. If people just take the extra time to dig into the research. But it's not even that much extra research. It's just find a weather app that you like to use.
click around inside of it, see all the features. If you don't know, go on YouTube and download a random weather app. There is some very nerdy person that we probably know indirectly that has made a YouTube video about how that weather app works and watch it, see all the detail. The other big thing is the government does an amazing job researching and tracking the weather around the world. So the EU has one of the best meteorology teams.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:where they're tracking information. If you're getting married ⁓ on a remote island somewhere, ⁓ there is going to be like the government down, you could say in the Inglil or Barbados or Saint, know, pick a small island. There is someone tracking the weather and they have a website and the person who puts the discussion about what the weather is going to be that day and woke up at six in the morning to gather all the information and write this discussion will probably be pumped to find out that one person has read that that day.
Kevin Dennis (:Not funny.
Andrew Leavitt (:And
every day there are people writing discussions about the weather who are trained meteorologists and pushing that out to the world. ⁓ just, you know, for in the States, NOAA has great information and we just tell people like there's a lot of times where people ask if they can, know, budgets might not line up or it's not the right fit. And we sort of talk them through how they can still find all the information and it's out there. It's all available. But yeah, don't take the extra step. Just an extra click will save you a lot of headaches.
Kevin Dennis (:Well, I love it because that's the one thing like I coach Little League Baseball on top of doing wedding stuff and all us coaches are like, it's going to rain on Saturday. no, the games will be canceled. Meanwhile, we all play, you know, because none of us took that time to, like you said, to take that extra step to look and see what's going on.
Andrew Leavitt (:And it's funny because the, when you say Little League, I like, when we first started, we were talking to a bunch of different people and you know, where can we go with this? is it to Little Leagues or schools or summer camps? And then I was sitting with one of a ⁓ friend of ours and they basically got an alert that their kids shouldn't walk home. And they were, we were all in New York. They lived in Florida because there was a lightning strike. So it was basically telling parents to come pick their kids up from school that day. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:know, plan for kids to walk home if you live within the distance. And that is the perfect use case is that there are people using these services for things that we didn't know about. And with lightning strikes, like it's real. There's, I mean, there's planners that have been struck. There's people at weddings, tents, obviously. So like it's worth taking that little extra step.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:That's like your safety brain coming back on. Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Well.
Andrew Leavitt (:I think it's always on, which is the worst.
Kevin Dennis (:Thank
We
were all about maybe six months ago. We were all sitting in our office. We're 45 minutes east of San Francisco and our iPhones all started going apeshit and it was Tsunami warning and we were like what the fuck is you know, like, you know, we were freaking out because one we are nowhere near the ocean or water and there's hills between you know, so we were putting on the news. There was nothing on the news.
But we got this random warning and we were all freaking out. And then eventually the news started covering it and everything started, you know.
Andrew Leavitt (:And it's,
it's funny because you say that. it's, there's like different, uh, Oh, there's a bunch of different ways to describe it for like regional weather. people know what their weather is. There's a thing called global comfort index or a thermal comfort index, which basically means that like I live in New Orleans. It is 90 degrees right now. If I came to visit you, I'd be in like t-shirt and shorts and freezing because I'd say like, I, this is like, I packed wrong for this. Um,
And if you came down here, you'd like, you live in a sauna. Like how do you exist here? ⁓ but the biggest thing I've noticed when I moved back down here is hurricane and flood warnings for me, someone that had just done 10 years in New York and have been focusing on the weather. If I get a alert of severe weather, like I am thinking about it, like, I wonder how bad this is going to be. ⁓ 50 mile an hour winds. I'm going to go bring patio furniture inside. Like that is the end of the world.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:And then my friends who grew up here who have lived through multiple hurricanes, they're like, oh yeah, we're all going to go meet for a drink. Do you want to come out? Do you want to drive and meet up with us? And it's very much how, yeah, I mean, it's how people are used to or what people are used to. But also with a lot of your venues and vendors, they all know pretty much what happens on their site if they've there long enough. So if you're in New Orleans and you're basically after April,
I would be shocked at any of the venues here basically suggesting to do an outside wedding because they know that there's a possibility that people overheat because they know it's just going to be a swampy gross situation. And that's something like you play into your region very well. And that's a big part of it. And when it comes to the venues, another thing that think that couples should always know is you've booked your dream wedding venue. Like it looks perfect. And
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:You're getting married next to a lake. The lake is at the bottom of this big hill. And you might, there's a little bit of a flat piece down there. Like it's worth asking, Hey, does that area flood? And those are the questions that if there is some severe weather coming, you know, a week before is that area that you're going to build a tent on going to be flooded already? ⁓ if there is a, you know, bad storm the day of, but you're in a tent, is it going to flood while you're in the tent? And then how are people going to walk back up the hill to get to the parking lot?
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Hello.
Andrew Leavitt (:So all the venues for the most part will either have a team that knows it or just find like that old groundskeeper who has been there for 50 years and ask that person. But there's definitely like ask the questions because it saves you. I think it saves you money. Obviously, I think there's a lot of variables like that. It saves you like emotional stress. Like there is so much extra. Put your put your crazy emotions towards everything else that it's going to go on with your wedding. Like you don't need to make the weather the one thing that is going to freak you out because there are.
It's science, there's answers for most of it. We can't answer how your family will interact with each other, but.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:It will know you can't predict any of that that that's all wild card information It's always interesting to me where couples will go back there will go to their wedding Venue negative one, know like so one year out from their wedding day just to see what the weather's like and I'm like I'm like this isn't gonna tell you you know, like you got a that's telling you nothing, know, like because that time like like because even you know We're in California and like it's been unseasonably cool to start our year
August Yocher (:you
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Like we barely have cracked the eighties here and I think today is going to be like our second day that we've had so far this year that's in the eighties and it just it's you know, and again going back I coach baseball. Usually the kids are dying this time of year playing baseball because it's starting to get really hot and we never had that and so it just it's always interesting to me like I'll go back or or or I here I looked in the farmers Almanac and therefore you know, I know what my weather is going to be like.
August Yocher (:I know I'm going to lose my way.
Andrew Leavitt (:Yeah,
I used to say that we're like the farmer's almanac on crack. And then I was like, maybe that's not a good way of saying it. Like, probably makes it sound worse. But like, I mean, the farmer's almanac is climatology, like that is through and through. And it was people keeping really good records of what was going on. ⁓ We're, we have so much data. mean, the amount of the amount of data that gets collected from the weather stations from every single airplane that goes around from every cell tower.
August Yocher (:Ahaha!
Kevin Dennis (:Hahaha
Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:users, there are cars on the market right now ⁓ that if it rains on your windshield, it will trigger the system to let an API know that it's raining there. And that was a huge feature that was involved with a bunch of different companies. There's tons and tons of data. It's just taking 30 seconds to figure out where to source it from. And for us, the amount of data and resources that we have, it...
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:gives you like this time not, I want to say like an unfair advantage, but it gets you to the point where you can make these calls and feel really good about and confident. And if you're the one for couples, like it's your family, you invited your loved ones there, ⁓ try to keep everyone safe. Like you don't want to put, you know, grandma in a situation where it's a hundred degrees outside and there's one water station that's too far for her to walk to. So making these calls ahead of time to make sure that everyone's safe saves a lot of people.
August Yocher (:Yeah, I was going to bring that up too, Kevin. I used to work at a venue and I would get those questions 100 % all the time on every tour. Is it going to rain? Where's the shade at? Are the vineyards going to look like this? And every time I had to answer, California weather is very unpredictable. It is very different every year. So it's so hard to just pinpoint or give a prediction.
Definitely I'm going to be, you know, recommending you in the future because that's just really amazing. It's really cool.
Kevin Dennis (:Well, well, yeah, and
it's funny even here like in California like I want to say it was three January's ago The weather was so mild We didn't you know, we were in that drought that we were having and people were able to do outdoor ceremonies in January You know because it wasn't raining that as long as the Sun was up It wasn't really cold, you know, it was cool, but not like cold where you needed to you know
winter gear on it was in the fifties you know which if someone in New York is all that's what you know like you know like you said depending on where you are in the country you know so we were doing crazy stuff but then the following year after the drought it was flooding it was insane you know so that's where I think the historical data comes back in
Andrew Leavitt (:And that's it. You look at an outlier event like that, I think it was 2023, I think. And yeah, you look at that, it's like, okay, this is an outlier. This makes sense. This happens. This is how statistics work. But then how do we look at this in a larger scale? the thing that I don't like to... Thank you for... I'll start this. Thank you for welcoming me to your podcast. I hope I don't get any emails after this when I say this.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Of course.
August Yocher (:Yeah
Andrew Leavitt (:I think people need to take into account that climate change is very much real. And there's a percentage of people that don't want to feel that way. And then a percentage of people, which I fall into myself that think, okay, where, you know, how do we change the rest of everyone's attitude? And then more recently, I've kind of stopped changing attitude and I changed infrastructure. And I think that's how you have to think about it. It's like I've, I'm past my stand on the soapbox talk about
Kevin Dennis (:yeah.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
August Yocher (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:⁓ how to turn the ship around. And now I'm just like, well, if we're going down this road, we might as well have snow tires on. ⁓ And that is sort of my thought is, which is California is a prime example where you live in, you know, live in an amazing, beautiful, it's through movies and the rest of the world is seen as this sunny, beautiful place. But when it rains, the infrastructure is not set up for it. Where Seattle is, we're just like, there are cities that have this set up. New Orleans was
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-mm.
August Yocher (:Mm-mm.
Andrew Leavitt (:incredible this year because we had 12 inches of snow. on Monday, yeah, was a we had a first time it was like over 100 years since we've had that much snow. We had a lot of snow in New Orleans, which was the best day I've ever had in the city. We started tracking it. I saw like the notification for it talked to my team. I was like, is this real? This can happen. I made it to the store got hot cocoa, everything make grilled cheese sandwiches moved all my phone calls that day to the morning.
Kevin Dennis (:wow!
August Yocher (:my god.
Andrew Leavitt (:And I was like, by the afternoon, I'm going to be off work and I'm going to like have a snow day. So I went outside with my boots on and I had all my snow gear from up North, walked around and the city was, it looked like I was back in Boston or New Hampshire. was. And the worst part was that we obviously don't have snowplows here. So we ended up as a city having to call people and I believe it was Indianapolis to drive, ⁓ 11 trucks down overnight to get here.
Kevin Dennis (:wow!
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:and it took them two days to clear the roads. took them like three days to the highway. And it was something that the infrastructure, like there isn't a plow in this state that is meant for snow. There are plenty of back roads. So you just have to think about those sort of things. ⁓ It was incredible to watch everyone try to drive around in the snow. And it was very fun activity to see. But yeah, just, you know, in a small scale with a wedding, it's
Kevin Dennis (:Wow. Yeah.
August Yocher (:Yes.
Andrew Leavitt (:What infrastructure changes can we make? Do we know that we need to raise the tents up? Should we do a floor? Should we do just a dance floor on the ground? I've had some great backyard weddings in Texas where they know that it most likely isn't going to rain. They're in a very dry climate. Wind speed picks up and there's a lot of dust and dirt from the areas that they're in. And that starts flying in and they've gone with open ⁓ tops, tents, but using it just for the structure, for lighting, for florals.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:And it's turned into a thing. So, you know, you have to kind of play and think about the worst things that could possibly happen at your wedding, which is horrible advice. ⁓ But then just go up with a game plan to work around them if they do happen. And that's really what we try to preach and tell everyone about.
Kevin Dennis (:That's crazy.
August Yocher (:think that's
bad advice. think, you know, you have to plan for the worst. So that way you're prepared for whatever comes your way. And that kind of did lead into one of my next questions because I know I kind of want to go back. It's kind of connected to the cicadas you brought up earlier. So I'm sure there's lots of weather related challenges or environment related challenges. But how involved is your team in?
I guess making recommendations on how to combat those issues when they come up. Because I know you guys did the research on the cicadas, but if there's other similar things like that that come up, how do you guys get involved?
Andrew Leavitt (:Yeah, so it's interesting. multiple again, you ask great questions. They're all multi-part. I would say the best way that we do it when it comes to things like this, Kate, is we are putting in the effort and the time to do the research. So people will hire us to basically know that we're going to go spend the three hours on the phone call with someone, ask the right questions, find out how this is going to interfere with the event. Cause we're thinking all of us.
August Yocher (:Yeah
Andrew Leavitt (:If you might myself in the concert safety side, all of our meteorologists cover festivals, you know, the masters F1 racing, they all are around ⁓ trucks, trailers, ⁓ mobile port of body stations. Like they're used to things going to different places to be set up for events and understand how the weather will interfere with that. So with that, we find people that understand the science that we need to figure out. And then we meet with them and just talk with them. And then we relate that in a way that the.
couple can understand and then the planner can explain to the couple or that we can explain to the venue. ⁓ When it comes to the actual event week and it's the weather, we get your production schedule or the production schedule ahead of time and like no production schedule or run a show is ever what it starts out as but like it gives us a good idea. Like it's you know, we have general concepts of what's gonna happen on site. And then we're we do it via text message because and phone calls. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:Originally we were like, oh, we'll send one email in the morning and we'll be fine. And this is going to be enough to cover them for the day. I was like, no, no, we will send 200 text messages throughout the day with every little bit of updates and things that might change something on site. And then after we do that, we kind of realized that like planners are either a lot of planners will basically give us a thumbs up emoji, or they're going to jump into what is cool. I'm going to give you a call in five minutes.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:And then we're on a 20 minute phone call at one in the afternoon figuring out, ⁓ this is the option we have for a sound check for the band. know the rain is going to be coming at this time. Okay. Well, can we move the sound check to an hour or two after that? Because we know the storm is going to push out. Yeah. Then we have to move the dinner party, welcome cocktails to this location. Cool. Is that location on grass? Yeah. Is the grass on the top of the hill or bottom of the hill? Top of hill. Okay, cool. It should be dry by then. And we really go through all those details and we, it's a mixture of like sounding board.
and, you know, make sure it's on the board and kind of like giving you the warnings. ⁓ when we get together with the planners and people that we trust and know it, the, for us, a big thing is working with planners and venues that it's repeat business. ⁓ not for the fact that it is just repeat business, but for the fact that they don't question any information and they start to learn how to read the reports, how to break down the information. When I say something that I would normally, you know,
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:though sustained wind speed will be under 12 miles an hour, they know sustained wind speed is basically your constant gust or wind over three seconds. But when I say a gust is going to be over 35, they're saying, OK, well, for at least under a second, there's going to be 35 mile an hour gust. What do I need to go ballast? What do I need to go put weights on? What do I need to make sure isn't going to fly away? And they're really getting involved in that. So for couples, ⁓ you have plenty of time to.
think about all this and to do the research and to talk to professionals and you'll be able to kind of know this stuff. And once you know it, then that's where that emotional connection kind of goes away. Cause like you, you've conquered it. You feel confident in what you're going to do.
Kevin Dennis (:I love it. All right. So what advice outside of hiring you, your company, would you give couples when it comes to weather?
Andrew Leavitt (:When it comes to the weather, would say one never checked the radar or never checked the forecast seven days before you're on site. If you want to do historical research, I would say that there are a bunch of websites out there, including the farmers' almanac. I'll give them full credit. I think it's like $2 and you can get a pretty, you know, summed up version of what the highs and lows are. You probably do it with chatchi PT too. You know, there's like, there are options out there to figure out the climatology data.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
Hehehehe
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:For us, I feel like the selling point on that is we try to believe that by having Jack do it by hand, there's a little bit more nuance in what you're actually looking for. But there is a ton of resources when it comes to historical weather data. And when it comes to the event and you're now seven days out, ⁓ take that one extra second and look at what 90 % chance of rain really means, how much rain is gonna be, what time is it gonna rain, and then start thinking, okay, well, what does that rain really affect? ⁓
Wind speed is like the killer of timelines, ⁓ mainly because of hair, which is for any of viewers watching this and not listening, doesn't really affect me that much. But it is real. Like make sure that you understand how windy it will be. Make sure your guests are comfortable and make sure your guests are safe. ⁓ That's the biggest thing is, you know, it's like, not that I think there are concert promoters out there and I definitely won't say that we ever thought this way, but with a concert, we were selling a ticket.
August Yocher (:haha
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-mm. That is important.
Andrew Leavitt (:for a product, for a show, came inside. We probably see you later at another show, but it's not my aunt, my uncle, my best friends, my grandma, my grandfather. Like it is not that much of an emotional connection to the people that really are coming all the way to see you get married. So don't put them in an unsafe situation. ⁓ we've heard a thousand horror stories of people basically saying, well, we know it's thunder and lightning. We know that there's going to be 40 mile an hour winds, but we still want to get married in this tent outside. Like it's not.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Andrew Leavitt (:And when the tents, and they do collapse, like it's a real thing. And it is something that like, don't put your family in a situation like that.
Kevin Dennis (:No, especially how your loved ones in one spot.
August Yocher (:Mm-mm.
Andrew Leavitt (:Yeah, it's, mean, just keep everyone safe. Uh, and that's, know, what I kind of would let everyone know. And also have fun. It's, uh, you know, I'll say it's just going to go wrong. The weather's going to change. Uh, it's still mother nature. Like you can be that 10%, uh, is still 10%. That's a pretty big number for all of a sudden, uh, you know, for you to have this great rainbow moment, or it could be 10 % the other way where you're going to have, you know, the downpours, uh, for the, for the most part though.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:people always ask question, how often are we wrong? And I always try to say like, we're not wrong because we're giving you updated information. It's not like we're standing here being like, this is what's happening. And we've stated it on this hour a week before. ⁓ But a week before you can start seeing the signs that there's going to be severe weather a week out. And then four days before you still see those signs and they've increased in risk. Five days before it's increased in risk again. Like you can start.
Kevin Dennis (:Mmm.
August Yocher (:Mmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:pretty confidently saying that our confidence is above 90%. This is going to happen. ⁓ There is always that 10 % where when we've had this, had an event actually, not a wedding, but we doing an event at the White House ⁓ for the last administration. And there was storms that we saw and we tracked them. went nine miles to the North and like nine miles to the South. Eight miles was our evacuation point. ⁓ They just, we missed it just completely.
Kevin Dennis (:Wow.
Andrew Leavitt (:and went to the other north and south. And that is a situation where, you know, there was a 90 % chance that we were going to have to evacuate, but the 10 % say this. So you got to also just remember it's still just the weather.
Kevin Dennis (:Wow.
August Yocher (:Wow.
Kevin Dennis (:I love that. All right. Crazy story. You got to share. Yeah, but no, but you got to share it. Do you have any crazy stories or anything that happened over the years?
August Yocher (:Very crazy.
Andrew Leavitt (:I can give you like the weirdest, man, I don't even know. I wish I should have had a little bit more time. feel like my craziest ones, no, my craziest ones are nerdy crazy. They're not like exciting crazy. ⁓ So like nerdy crazy is like we once got asked how deep or how much rain it will take for a high heel stiletto.
Kevin Dennis (:Wow, sorry.
August Yocher (:That's okay.
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ we like nerdy.
Andrew Leavitt (:to sink into a golf course in California at a country club in LA. And we had to go talk to like Brown's crew from golf courses and figure out how much rain like the average sprinkler gives out in a certain amount of time so that we could then send a wedding planner to go test the sink rate of a shoe. And like, that is something that I, if you told me I was starting a company about the weather, I would be like, yeah, but I'm never going to have to figure out like, at what point your high heels sinks into the ground.
⁓ So that was probably like one of the weirder requests. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:I don't think
that's weird though, because I think that's... Yeah.
August Yocher (:think it's valid. We get that question,
well at least like we work at a lot of, I mean we're in California, it's beautiful, so we have outdoor weddings any time of the year and when I used to work at a venue, one of them had grass, you know, where the guests would be seated and we said like, yeah, it's not raining today but it rained this morning and just keep in mind that, you know, any of the girls in heels, like, they're gonna be sinking in the ground.
Andrew Leavitt (:it can happen.
I feel like after I researched this and like this went on my tick tock, got advertisements for like the little heel stopper things that I didn't know existed, like a wider base clear heel stopper for that exact situation. And I was like, interesting. That's a good product. I never need to use it, but I now know it exists. So we hit the weird stuff like that. ⁓ I think the biggest like there's been nothing that
Kevin Dennis (:Existence? Yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:I will say like nothing that has, there's been no knock on wood and everything else. ⁓ we haven't put ourselves in a situation where it's like the tent collapse or things like that are happening. ⁓ We, and like that side of the thing scares me. We hear the horror stories after, ⁓ and those ones are always just like rough to kind of talk to people about. ⁓ but we've had skydivers, jump out of helicopters, ⁓ for like events with us, energy drink companies that we've tracked the weather for. We.
Kevin Dennis (:Thank God, yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:put ⁓ a replica house that looks like the up house ⁓ up on a crane ⁓ in the middle of the desert. that one, they chose the location before they hired us. And we were like, you guys picked literally the windiest spot. Granted, it is the most empty spot in all of America. So there was no secrets or spoilers or anyone saw that being built. But the reason it's empty is because no one in their right mind would go out there. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:⁓ yeah.
August Yocher (:I saw that on your website, yeah.
Andrew Leavitt (:So like we've done weird stuff, but we try not to do any weird stuff that we don't think about the danger on the other side and make sure it's always safe.
Kevin Dennis (:I love it. I love it. All right. So how can our folks get a hold of you? And we'll have all the information and show notes as well.
Andrew Leavitt (:Perfect, yeah, it's ⁓ best was Instagram. It's at ironic reports, ironic like the Alanis Morissette song as we found out earlier and same URL. So if you need anything, please reach out. We'd love to connect with people in different parts and especially for ⁓ people that are a little bit nervous on the front end. It's like the best thing about this job is when you start calming nerves down, you play a little bit of like meteorology slash therapist.
and then the wedding is success, it just feels great to know that everything worked out.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah,
I feel like they're hiring you for a piece of mine is what is really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
August Yocher (:was just gonna say that.
Andrew Leavitt (:We
get that a lot and it makes me feel very happy to know that that's what the real offering is.
Kevin Dennis (:Love it. All right. And then I have to ask you before we end up, what weather app should I get so I'm better than my wife?
Andrew Leavitt (:I
would recommend fully waking up five minutes earlier, going to Noah and Noah, go to a website and just read that like paragraph long discussion. will tell you everything for the day. And you're just going to sound brilliant the entire time. Oh but we are going to get a Northwest wind in a little bit, but it's really going to change the shift of everything, you know, pushing off the coast. Um, and that might give you the app. Uh, I, I trust Noah. Um, I think that.
Kevin Dennis (:Okay.
Noah.
OK.
Andrew Leavitt (:I don't normally, try not to ever recommend one weather app. The best one I would have recommended till the day I died was Dark Sky. Dark Sky was one of the only groups that really did it different. ⁓ Apple bought ⁓ them. Yeah, there's a conspiracy theory for why that happened, which is Apple makes 30 % off of all weather apps sold in the store. If everyone buys one weather app, they...
Kevin Dennis (:Okay.
Mmm.
And ruined them, what I heard. Yeah.
Okay.
August Yocher (:Hmm.
Andrew Leavitt (:are not making 30 % off of 25 different weather apps. And that is a theory that I have floated and it makes sense from a business point. It doesn't make any sense that app was great. It really was like the rock star app. So I always tell people just check the government, you go straight to the source, because all of these weather apps, if you look at where they got their information from, they all get it from the exact same source every single day. So it's just how they present it to you.
Kevin Dennis (:It really does.
I'm gonna have to get up and be, I don't know, competitive with my wife. I have to win the argument, so.
Andrew Leavitt (:just five zero.
August Yocher (:And we need
to get you a green screen so you can sound cool while you're doing it. ⁓
Kevin Dennis (:I know, yeah, there you go. Yeah,
Andrew Leavitt (:And over here, yeah, have to know the hand motions are key. But yeah, so thank you again for having me on. This was awesome.
August Yocher (:Yes.
Kevin Dennis (:I love it. No, we love it. Thank you for being here. We will have all of Andrew's information in our show notes and we encourage everyone to go out there. I think we're going to tell everyone now about you and they need everyone needs Andrew is what it comes down to.
August Yocher (:Yeah, literally so cool. Again,
like I said, the one thing we can't control and now we have some slight control over it. So that's really cool.
Andrew Leavitt (:Thank you for having me.
Kevin Dennis (:Alright, thanks folks, and thanks for listening to another episode of Now That I'm Gaged, How Do I Get Married? We'll see you next time!
