Hungary weather: what is the best month to get married?
Frissítve: 7 nappal ezelőtt
I'm sorry for the click-bait title, I will not give an exact answer, but I will explain it why I can't and - of course - I give you a general overview about Hungary's weather, so you will have an idea, if you never lived here, but you get married in Hungary. I also show you photos about why brides shouldn't check the weather forecasts months/weeks/(or even) days (!) before their wedding.
Hungary has a typical continental climate with hot dry summers and mildly cold (theoretically) snowy (but nowadays rather dry) winters. There are four seasons in Hungary: winter (December, January, February), spring (March, April, May), summer (June, July, August), and autumn (September, October, November). Average annual temperature is 9.7 °C (49.5 °F). Average high temperature in the summer is 23 to 28 °C (73 to 82 °F) and temperature can climb up above 35 °C on the hottest days in July-August. Average low temperature in the winter is −3 to −7 °C (27 to 19 °F) and temperature might drop below -10 °C on the coldest days. Generally, the weather is warmest from May to September. (Source: Eötvös Loránd University)
The climate of this region is determined by the fact that it is located at the collision zone of three major European climate areas - continental, oceanic and Mediterranean. From this last sentence you can imagine, if the weather had to be described in one word, it would be "unpredictable".
During a wedding we planned last summer we have documented the week before the event (weather-forecast-wise). We have chosen one of the "top selling wedding weekends" of the year: 28 August 2021. We were celebrating the marriage of Julia and Tim at Balaton Uplands (as an aggravating factor - see later) namely in the Káli Basin. The planned time of the symbolic ceremony was 5 pm (outdoors as default). As it used to be plan B wasn't really liked by the couple having to have in indoors, on the dance-floor.
I have made screen shots about a popular weather-forecast application from 23 August (T-6 days). I have highlighted the target date on them with yellow (and on the ones of the target day, I have highlighted the target starting time).
I have checked it more than this, but I thought 15 photos were enough to browse. If you skipped browsing, I can tell you the forecast changed several times even within one day. Worst, it show totally different thing in the morning of the wedding day, at noon and 39 minutes before the planned start of the ceremony. I have checked not only one app, and all of them "played this".
There is one application, which is still a big help for me on the wedding day (!). And this is a radar map. I have it on my phone, but I can't highlight enough that it helps only on the day. It tells well, when it is worth to start to check weather. In addition, when it's doubtful for me what I see on the radar map, I always call the Hungarian Meteorological Service on the phone, when I have to make a decision about things like ceremony plan A or B. This used to happen hours before the planned starting time, since the decorator and the furniture rental company might need hours to install their stuff.
Back to the wedding of Julia and Tim: we had vendors on the day checking their radar map to see, where we can make the ceremony. But I knew it was pointless. We were Lake Balaton having its own micro climate. As you can see on the above screen shot, there is no rain cloud above us - as per the radar. But when we looked up at the sky, we saw this:
(phone photo)
Even the more optimistic ones would consider this as "risky". Yepp, these are rain clouds flying at low level ("under the radar"). And let me explain Lake Balaton's weather here always being an aggravating factor. Because of the closeness of the lake, the high humidity and unstable atmosphere anytime a local shower may develop even if nothing can be seen on the radar map or even if everywhere else is sunny in Hungary.
In dispite of all these things - since we know all couples want plan A - we risked it and we installed everything outdoors. We had to decide this hours before the ceremony, since the works need time. Half hour before the start we could do only one thing: we asked local people living here if they know what to expect when clouds are coming from this or that direction.The answer was like: "she better get married asap... :D LOL Keep calm, it (meaning the cloud) will go away". We hardly could believe it seeing this from the fountain:
Having a symbolic ceremony (being less strict in timing) we could have started earlier, since the vendors were ready, but not all the guests were there in time. So we were waiting... The photographer directed to couple to the other side of the house to not see this 'Armageddon'. And the ceremony has started at 5 pm...
... and it has been finished without any drop of rain...
... and in 5 minutes after the end it has started to rain showing that even the patience of the sky is limited. :D It was raining all night long, which didn't really disturbed us, since everything else was planned indoors. The only thing we couldn't make was the row of group photos outdoors, what we have replaced with indoor ones under the sign "Endlich" referring to the several postpones we had to make because of Covid. But it's another story...
Not wanting to make this writing much more longer, we would like to pass the bride's message she is sending to all bride (and groom) fellows having the biggest fear to have rain during their wedding:
"Listen to Timi!
But really! I didn't take care when she said it wasn't worth looking at the weather app. I secretly looked at it several times every day in the weeks leading up to the wedding. What calmed us down the most was when we finally decided not to order a tent for the outdoor dinner. So we were prepared to go inside from the start, and we didn't have to worry about having to move if it rained. We are very lucky that the venue has a room that fits our people perfectly. If someone is very afraid of this, then it is worth looking for a wedding venue in the first place where the rain plan can be implemented so easily. We, for example, would not have agreed to a forest ceremony for this very reason.
On the day of our wedding, thank goodness I was very busy, so I didn't have time to worry about the weather. The only thing I noticed from the whole thing was that after my make-up and hair were done, I looked out into the yard and saw Timi and his team covering everything with foil. Of course, this made me panic, so my girlfriends immediately opened another bottle of champagne to distract me, which worked perfectly for me. :)
In retrospect, there was no point in worrying about it, because even though Timi was able to arrange everything for us regarding the wedding, no matter how we look at it, even she can't influence the weather... It doesn't matter if it's 15 degrees that day, it's raining- whether it's raining or windy, whatever the weather, if you connect your life with your love that day, it can only be a perfect day."