It's like smoke on your wedding day — How the wedding industry is working around wildfires

Planning an outdoor wedding can be notoriously unpredictable when any number of factors can make or break the big day: The temperature, the wind, the dreaded possibility of rain, and of course, wildfire smoke. 

This year, smoke is an increasingly frequent problem couples have to contend with. And with Canada already breaking records in 2023 for the area of land burned, the $5 billion wedding industry has had to scramble.

"First COVID basically decimates the event industry, and now we finally get back up and we're dealing with forest fires," said Erica Irwin, a wedding planner in Ottawa who's been in the business for 15 years.

"Tent weddings in general make me nervous because there's only so much we can do to mitigate any kind of risks or mitigate any kind of weather. But I think now especially … a major piece of it will be tracking when forest fires are the worst and really staying away from outdoor weddings then."

Canada surpassed the record for area burned by wildfires in a single year Monday as hundreds of fires continued to blaze in almost every province and territory.

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported Monday afternoon that 76,129 square kilometres of forest and other land has burned since Jan. 1. That exceeds the previous record set in 1989 of 75,596 square kilometres, according to the National Forestry Database.

As of Wednesday, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre's website showed 487 active fires burning across the country. That same day, Environment Canada released air quality statements for parts of the Northwest Territories and every province outside Atlantic Canada, including huge sections of Ontario and Quebec.

On the online forum Reddit, the "wedding planning" category has been peppered with tips, advice and panicked questions about how to plan for smoke on both sides of the border.

"Is there any hope?" asked one redditor earlier in June, noting that they have family with breathing conditions.

"My dream wedding is tomorrow and is outdoors. We have 200 guests coming," wrote another person in Philadelphia, noting "the smoke is bad."

In Toronto, one person tweeted "The air quality in Toronto due to the wildfires is gonna be so bad this whole week, including my wedding day which sounds so selfish but I'm just [sad]."

Another person wrote "rain is apparently good luck on your wedding day, but what about thick clouds of smoke caused by massive Canadian wildfires?" 

On June 9, NPR profiled a couple in Washingto, D.C., who were worried about the thick, orange haze hanging over their wedding that weekend. "The air quality is one of [those] things you never think you would have to worry about," said Christina Lamoureux.

But Valerie Guerrera, a wedding planner in Montreal, told CBC News that air quality is something wedding planners and couples will likely need to think about even more moving forward.