Column: Praying for sunshine on my wedding day

There may be no exercise more maddening than checking the weather forecast more than a week in advance of a particular day. On weather.com, the monthly tab lists a forecast for 15 consecutive days.

I can’t imagine there’s much scientific accuracy in predicting weather that far out, but nevertheless, it’s there for anyone to check.

Ordinarily I would never waste my time investigating the forecast two weeks in advance, but this month, with my wedding looming, I couldn’t resist the urge to take a curious glance at the May 14 forecast when it first became available. The initial forecast looked good. Partly sunny. Temperature in the mid-60s. I took a deep breath.

Over the next two weeks, I refreshed the website no fewer than 10,000 times, alternately checking the forecast by the National Weather Service. I came close to calling our sources at the Upton station for a more detailed analysis, pretending I had some sort of news hook.

This may come as no surprise to anyone who ever fretted over the weather, but the predictions seemed to change every day. A chance of showers one day. The next, partly sunny. Another day, mostly cloudy. Sometimes it changed within the day. The high temperatures predicted by weather.com and weather.gov rarely matched.

As the big day neared, the weather logo displayed half sunshine and half rain. The chance of precipitation said 50 percent.

Flip a coin.

When my wife and I chose our venue, Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, the biggest draw was the picturesque outdoor scenery where our ceremony and cocktail hour would be held. When we signed a contract in November 2014, we crossed our fingers for good weather.

As I’ve come to experience this month, the days and weeks leading up to a wedding are filled with chaos, high emotions and the occasional injury (my wife slammed her hand into our staircase as we attempted to carry boxes inside our house while trying to prevent our dog from escaping. It was touch and go for a minute, but she pulled through).

The stress for me leading up to the big day was mostly caused by the things out of my control: such as the weather. Last Thursday, two days before showtime, I finally felt a sense of relief. The chance of showers for May 14 appeared to be mostly toward the end of the day and the forecast looked clear during the early afternoon for our ceremony and cocktail hour.

I like to believe I’m a mostly calm, patient person. But the stress of a wedding can be overbearing even for the most relaxed individual — especially when it comes to keeping the bride cool, calm and collected. Ten days before the wedding, the tension between us hit an all-time high. I’ve been told this is fairly normal.

As the week wore on, and with a to-do list bearing down on us, we had no choice but to buckle down and get to work.

On the Sunday before the wedding, we separated to begin different chores. I stopped at Office Depot to pick up labels. Unsure if I had the correct size, I texted a picture to my wife. Lacking service inside the store, the picture didn’t go through. So I bought what she had originally recommended, got in my car and pulled away when I got a text message saying to buy a different size. Back to the store I went.

Over the course of three nights we meticulously tied strings with a card around all 150 favors. My first attempt ended rather poorly, but once I got the hang of it, I was cranking.

On Tuesday, usually my late night at work, we drove over an hour to our venue to drop off the favors, followed by a visit to the florist to hash out final details. After stopping for a bite to eat, we got back home shortly after 11 p.m.

By Wednesday, the next mission was cleaning. With a few guests staying at our place, we needed to deep clean like we’ve never done before. We wrapped up at 11 p.m., exhausted, and headed for bed.

Two days to go.

The funny part about planning a wedding is it eclipses any thoughts about the honeymoon. I’ve barely taken a moment to look forward to our week at a resort in the Dominican Republic. Speaking of which, I need to go check the weather.

Editor’s note: There was a downpour moments after his gorgeous wedding concluded.

Joe Werkmeister is the managing editor of The Suffolk Times and Riverhead News-Review. He can be reached at [email protected] or 631-354-8049.