Here’s How to Pick the Best Time of Year
to Get Married in Palm Springs in 2020.
Get married at the right time of year and it’s beautifully balmy–the desert air wrapping around you like a warm hug while your guests party into the night. Choose the wrong time of year, and you’ll fry like an egg on the sidewalk. If the heat doesn’t get you, a horde of millennials on their way to Coachella may trample you on their way through town and insta story the whole thing. Wait, why is this destination wedding idea now sounding like a nightmare?! Calm down–we have your back. After getting this question from many of our destination clients, we enlisted the magical wedding planner brain of Courtney Tibbets from After the Engagement. We just did this colorful and fun mini brand shoot with her, so here’s a double whammy of epic brand photos and bomb advice. Because wedding planning in Palm Springs doesn’t have to suck, here are Courtney’s top tips for picking the right time of year to get married in Palm Springs.
As a wedding planner in Southern California who primarily focuses on destination weddings in Palm Springs, couples often ask me when the best time to get married in Palm Springs is. While there are the notorious 350 days of sunshine a year in this magical place, there are a lot of things to consider when choosing a date to get married.
1. PLAN AROUND COOLER MONTHS
My first recommendation is to consider October through the first weekend in December. Temps are wonderful, with sunshine during the day and comfortable summer skies at night. The other high season is February through the first weekend in April – the same goes! Wonderful, perfect desert days and nights.
2. SAVE MONEY IN THE EARLY SUMMER
Next, avoid the holiday period and consider the shoulder season! You could find savings in the “shoulder” months of January, late May, June, and September. Often times, minimums are lower and hotel rates are also lower. You may be trading these lower rates for higher temps, but if you have the freedom to start your ceremony later and don’t have to deal with the 10pm noise ordinance in Palm Springs with your chosen venue, you can have a perfect day of sunshine with a 6pm wedding ceremony that your guests will love.
3. AVOID LATE SUMMER
My first recommendation is to completely avoid July and August–it’s simply too hot, and you will roast your guests day or night. Instead, visit the desert during this time to hang in the pool all day and enjoy the A/C.
4. AVOID COACHELLA AND STAGECOACH
Next, I suggest avoiding anything in April other than the first weekend. The rest of April is filled with Coachella and Stagecoach, and your guests will not like paying the hotel prices during that time of year.
5. AVOID DINAH SHORE, TENNIS TOURNAMENT, AND PRIDE
You may also want to avoid the two weekends in February when Modernism Week (February 13th-23rd, 2020) brings thousands of visitors to admire the epic architecture. Other times when hotel rates might be much higher are Dinah Shore (April 1st-6th, 2020), the tennis tournament (March 9th-22nd, 2020), and Pride (November 6th-8th, 2020).
All in all, you can’t pick a bad time to visit or get married–it’s a magical desert wonderland. These are definitely my choices for the best times to get married in Palm Springs!
Thanks, Courtney! This is super helpful. If you’re looking for a wedding planner who believes in “till death do us party”, she is your woman and you should book her stat. Of course, you’ll need photos so you can relive the night, right? Slide into our DMs because we want to capture this for you.
