Welcome back to Bride Club ME, your ultimate guide to wedding planning in the UAE and beyond, where we blend inspiration with expert advice. In today’s special interview, we’re diving into an often overlooked but crucial aspect of your big day: weather safety and event planning. Whether it’s concerns about an unexpected downpour or the challenges of a shamal in the UAE, we’ve got the ultimate expert to put your worries at ease.

Meet Andrew Leavitt, the mastermind behind IRONIC, Inc., where he leverages over two decades of event industry experience to specialise in Event Meteorology, Safety, and Risk Management. Andrew’s innovative approach ensures your wedding day is as flawless as your dreams, with minimized risks and maximized peace of mind. Join us as we uncover the secrets to a weather-proof wedding with Andrew’s expert insights.

Andrew, can you introduce us to Ironic Reports and explain the inspiration behind focusing on advanced weather reporting for weddings and events?

The idea for Ironic came from my best friend’s wedding. I watched as a very inexperienced wedding planner moved an entire luxury wedding from a perfect harbour-side view in a small coastal town in the Northeast United States to an un-airconditioned ballroom.

I was so confused by the decision, as the storm had already passed in the same amount of time it took to move everyone and set up.

After looking at a few radars on my phone, I suggested taking the cousins off the chairs outside, letting people have a drink, and pushing the timeline by 30 minutes. But my friends promptly told me to sit down and stay quiet!

Between that idea and my love for Alanis Morissette’s song, Ironic, and for those who are not familiar with that song, please listen to it and sing the chorus out loud!

It wasn’t until the pandemic hit that I lost my job, and my career as a festival and concert production manager came to a halt, so I acted upon it. I never like to think or talk about the pandemic as positive because it was harmful to everyone in the world, but in a very serendipitous way, between 2020 – 2022, as in the industry, we saw more outdoor weddings due to it.

It was the perfect time to launch a new company and spread the concept of Concierge Wedding and Event meteorology – it was serendipitous.

Weather can be a crucial factor in wedding planning. How do Ironic Reports help couples navigate the uncertainty of weather for their big day?

Ironic transforms weather unpredictability into a navigable aspect of wedding planning, offering couples peace of mind for their special day. That is why we sometimes refer to Ironic as a “Wedding Weather Confidence Platform.” and the best part is we are a remote service so we can do this from behind our weather desk and work on events anywhere in the world!

During the planning process, we start by helping couples narrow down their wedding date and location by providing them with historical weather data over the last 30 years. This data can be used to determine the best location and time for the wedding, as well as to make decisions about whether to move forward with outdoor plans in case of bad weather.

However, during this part of our process, we have also been asked some unique questions, such as, what the expected wind speed will be at a specific venue during a particular time of day, months before the wedding.  This information can help couples choose the appropriate hairstyle, attire, and even the card stock weight for the seating escort cards.

Starting one week before the wedding, our 24/7 weather desk begins tracking the weather and live forecast for the region surrounding the wedding. We provide daily weather reports in the morning and evening, along with severe weather and emergency alerts in case of severe weather conditions such as lightning, high winds, heavy precipitation, hurricanes, tornadoes, or anything that could result in an injury onsite.

The key to this is that unlike your weather app, which just provides data with no context, we pride ourselves on providing context and actionable insights for everyone involved in the wedding, from planners to vendors and even the couple themselves and their guests.

Overall, Ironic offers peace of mind to couples on their special day by making weather unpredictability a more manageable aspect of wedding planning.

Could you walk us through the process of how Ironic Reports generates its advanced weather forecasts? What technology or data analysis methods do you use?

Ironic crafts its weather forecasts through a sophisticated blend of meteorological technology and thorough data analysis. We start by aggregating a wealth of information from satellite imagery, radar data, and ground observations; we construct a comprehensive picture of both present and future weather conditions.

This approach involves computer models and numerical weather prediction algorithms to simulate atmospheric conditions accurately, is is then further enriched by historical weather data to enhance the forecasts’ precision and relevance.

This process parallels the strategic applications seen in other industries where weather predictions are vital for operational success. For example, energy traders rely on weather forecasts to predict UV exposure for solar panels, influencing market decisions between solar and oil energy prices. Applying similar technologies, Ironic provides wedding photographers and videographers with precise weather insights. This enables them to be optimally prepared for event assignments, ensuring they can capture each moment perfectly with the right equipment needed.

Above: Image by John Nassari – www.johnnassari.co.uk

In what ways do you think your service has transformed or significantly impacted the way weddings are planned, especially in regions prone to unpredictable weather?

Claiming we’ve transformed the industry wouldn’t be accurate; that credit goes to the brilliant planners and designers out there. However, we’ve certainly made a mark on confidence, stress levels, and decisiveness.

Our interactions with clients, both wedding professionals and their clients, often bring up stories of weddings teetering on the edge of disaster, aptly described as “Near Misses.” These incidents range from minor inconveniences that disrupt schedules to severe outcomes with financial burdens or, in the worst cases, injuries or fatalities.

Consider a thunderstorm scenario: a minor inconvenience might involve providing guests with umbrellas, while a significant financial strain could come from the sudden need to rent a tent or marquee. The direst outcome? The tent collapses under the force of severe wind gusts.

While a blown budget doesn’t compare to a blown-over tent, the essence of our impact lies in pre-emptive planning. Our goal is to empower the industry to anticipate and mitigate such risks, avoiding those precarious situations altogether.

Share with us one of your most memorable success stories where your weather report played a pivotal role in a couple’s wedding planning and execution.

In 2020, we were still discovering our company identity and understanding the full potential of the services we could offer. One of my most memorable and successful events was a micro-wedding by a lake in New Hampshire during the pandemic.

The wedding planner relied on standard weather apps throughout their career and was not fully sold on the accuracy of our services. They were convinced that around 9pm they would have perfect weather when the desserts would be passed around outside next to the fire pits.

However, our analysis showed a storm moving from Pennsylvania through New York toward New Hampshire that would bring severe downpours precisely at the time their dessert was planned.

Initially, our warnings were met with scepticism since they contradicted the perfect forecast provided by popular weather apps.

We urged the wedding planner to move the celebrations indoors, and with some reluctance, they heeded our advice around 8:30 p.m. By 8:45 p.m., as the first drops fell, nearly everyone was safely enjoying their dessert indoors, sheltered from the downpour that was to come.

Later that night, the planner informed us that we had “saved” the wedding and except for a few guests who didn’t listen and stayed outside, everyone was dry, safe, and happy!

This success kept us going in our early years and showed us the importance of challenging and changing perceptions around weather forecasting. How real-time information could safeguard not just the practical elements of an event but preserve the magic of a wedding without disruptions from mother nature.

How far in advance do you recommend couples, hotels, or wedding planners get in touch with Ironic Reports for a weather consultation? What’s the ideal timeframe?

We recommend that couples, planners, and vendors make use of our historical weather reports as early as possible. These reports can be created up to two years before the wedding day, providing valuable information on the expected weather patterns and climatology for a specific region.

During wedding week, we start monitoring the global weather forecast seven days before the wedding. This lets us stay up to date with weather systems that may directly impact the wedding day. Thanks to technological advances, we can accurately predict the weather with 80-90% accuracy within three to five days before the wedding in most major cities.

If you have any concerns about the weather, we suggest that you book us as early as possible. We have learned that major storms can move through a region at any time, whether from Florida to New York or from Barcelona to Monaco, and when they do, we get too many phone calls at once.  So, by booking us early, we can begin the planning process and ensure that you have a dedicated meteorologist covering your event.

Beyond just predicting sunny or rainy days, what other weather-related insights do you provide that can aid in the meticulous planning of a wedding? How do you think your business can help the UAE events industry in particular?

The UAE’s climate is unique and interesting due to quick and extreme wind shifts, heat waves, dust and sandstorms, and occasional flooding from rain or cloud seeding. However, this consistent climate over the years has resulted in more accurate historical reporting, and our on-call weather monitoring service can help navigate any likely weather events like high winds and sandstorms and the unlikely, but possible, weather events that most phone apps may miss like heavy precipitation or severe storms. The UAE falls into the stable but exciting category for wedding meteorologists as it is controlled yet still volatile.

Above: AI generated image

How do you ensure accuracy in your weather reports, and what steps do you take when forecasts change closer to the event date?

We are often asked about the reliability of weather forecasts. The truth is, we trust the science and the professional meteorologist behind our weather reports.

The common thought is that for every 10 years of scientific research and technological advancements, one more day can be added to the forecast. Right now, throughout the industry it is fair to say you can forecast 7 days safely but 10 years from now this will turn into 8 days. This is like Moore’s Law, where computers double their speed every two years, becoming faster and smaller.

Currently, the industry standards for accuracy are around 80% for forecasts 5-7 days out and 90% for forecasts within 4 days. We feel confident that our forecasts meet these industry standards. However, there is always room for improvement, and outlier situations can occur. To minimize these situations, we plan and communicate potential outcomes with our team. Live tracking is also important, as it allows us to stay in contact with our clients.

For hotels and wedding planners, how can partnering with Ironic Reports add value to their services and what feedback have you received from such collaborations?

The feedback we have received so far has been incredible! Since our launch, we have worked with over 50 event professionals who specialize in ultra-luxury wedding planning. Each of them has used Ironic in different ways, such as venue selection, pre-planning, relocating the entire event, or even rescheduling it to a later date if necessary.

Some of our clients view Ironic as an internal asset and include us in all their events. Other planners and venues hire us specifically for weddings in locations where the weather is known to be unpredictable. We also assume that their clients love to know that their planner or venue went the extra step and found a professional to watch over the most volatile part of their wedding, the part they didn’t know could be controlled, it feels great to be able to offer that type of support and hear how calm and relaxed their clients became because of our work.

The best part of our company is the unique ways in which wedding professionals use our service. We are always open to new challenges and weird requests that we receive.”

Finally, looking to the future, how do you see Ironic Reports evolving? Are there any new features or services you plan to introduce to better serve couples and the wedding/events industry?

We have some interesting ideas for the future, but for now, I can say that we are currently exploring all the latest technological advances in meteorology and brainstorming how we can utilize them for our clients and the wedding industry as a whole. 

Our chat with Andrew Leavitt of IRONIC, Inc. reveals a game-changing approach to wedding and event planning, emphasizing meteorology and safety to protect your big day from the unexpected. This service isn’t just a boon for brides but also a vital tool for event planners seeking to ensure every detail is perfect, come rain or shine. For those looking to seamlessly integrate this level of preparedness into their plans, connecting with Andrew could be the key to a stress-free event. Brides and planners alike can reach out to Andrew through the IRONIC, Inc. website, embarking on a journey toward secure and magical celebrations.