Boston Wedding Weather by Month: 30 Years of Saturday Rain Odds

Every guide to the best month to get married in Boston says roughly the same thing: spring is unpredictable, summer is hot, September is lovely, have a rain plan. All true, and not much help when you are choosing between two dates.

So we went to the source. We pulled thirty years of daily weather records for Boston’s Logan Airport from NOAA, 1996 to 2025, kept only the Saturdays — about 130 of them for every month of the year — and counted what actually happened. We did the same for the Hyannis weather station on Cape Cod.

The odds of rain on a Boston wedding Saturday

How to read it

• Any rain means at least a hundredth of an inch fell at some point in the day. Much of that is a passing shower or rain overnight that has cleared by the afternoon.
• Enough to matter is a tenth of an inch or more — the point at which an outdoor ceremony usually moves inside, or at least should have the option.
• A real soaking is half an inch or more: a wet day, not a wet hour.
• These are whole-day totals. A Saturday counts as rainy even if the rain fell at three in the morning. The real chance of rain during a two-hour window in the afternoon is lower than these figures.

One honest caveat. Each month is about 130 Saturdays, which is a good sample but not a huge one, so differences of three or four percentage points between months are within the range of chance. The larger gaps are real.

What thirty years of Saturdays tell you

There is no rain-free month

Measurable rain fell on somewhere between 23 and 42 percent of Saturdays in every month of the year. Even in the best stretch of the year, roughly one Saturday in seven had enough rain to move a ceremony. Every Boston wedding needs a wet-weather plan you would genuinely be happy with, not one you are hoping never to see.

Late summer and September are the driest

August (14 percent) and September (16 percent) had the fewest Saturdays with meaningful rain. The second half of September was the best of all: over thirty years, only 14 percent of Saturdays from the 16th to the end of the month had enough rain to matter, and only 2 percent reached 85 degrees. If you want the best odds of a dry, comfortable day in Boston, late September is it.

May and October are about one in four

The two other most popular wedding months are wetter than people expect. About a quarter of May Saturdays and a quarter of October Saturdays had a tenth of an inch of rain or more. April came out wettest of all on this measure, at 28 percent, with May and January close behind.

June’s storms are short but heavy

June’s overall odds are middling, but 12 percent of June Saturdays had a genuine soaking of half an inch or more, one of the highest rates of any month. In 13 of the last 30 years, at least one June Saturday was that wet. Summer rain in Boston tends to arrive as thunderstorms: heavy, often short, and frequently in the afternoon. A tent with sides you can drop is worth more in June than in September.

July is about heat, not rain

July had fewer rainy Saturdays than June, but 41 percent of July Saturdays reached 85 degrees or more, and the median high was 83. Late June was not far behind. If you are planning a July wedding, heat is the weather problem to solve: shade for the ceremony, a later start time, and water for everyone in a suit.

Saturdays are not cursed

It can feel as though it always rains at the weekend. It does not. Across thirty years, every day of the week had enough rain to matter on between 20 and 22 percent of days. Saturday was exactly average.

What about the wind?

Logan Airport sits on the harbour and is one of the windier places in the city, so treat these as an upper bound for most venues. Even so, the pattern is clear: average wind speeds on Saturdays ran around 12 miles an hour from January to March and 9 to 10 in summer, and a two-minute sustained wind of 25 miles an hour or more, at some point in the day, happened on 39 percent of March Saturdays and just 5 percent in August. Wind matters for veils, hair and, above all, outdoor ceremony audio, so it is worth knowing that summer and early autumn are the calmest part of the year.

On the coast, the Hyannis station recorded lighter average winds than Logan, but an open beach or a lawn on the water is always breezier than an airport weather station suggests. Sam and Khahnty’s wedding at Wychmere Beach Club on a grey, windy day shows how good that can look on film when it is planned for.

Cape Cod

The Cape followed the same broad pattern as Boston, with its own driest months in July (13 percent of Saturdays with meaningful rain), September (15 percent) and August (16 percent). May was the wettest on the Cape at 27 percent. July highs at Hyannis ran about four degrees cooler than Boston’s, which is one more argument for a coastal wedding in midsummer.

What to do with this

• If you want the best odds, look at late September. It had the lowest rate of meaningful rain and almost no heat.
• If you love May or October, plan for rain rather than hoping. One Saturday in four is not an edge case.
• For June and July, plan for heat and storms. Shade, a later ceremony and a tent with sides.
• Choose a rain plan you would be happy to use. Ask your venue to show you the wet-weather space set up, not described. At the Boston Harbor Hotel, for example, the arch at Rowes Wharf gives you a first-look location that still looks wonderful in the rain.
• Build the day around the light as well as the weather. Our sunset and golden hour table gives you the times for every month.

And if the forecast turns against you, it is worth knowing that overcast and even rainy days often film beautifully: soft light, rich colour, and umbrellas that make for some of the most memorable footage of the day. You can see that in our gallery. When you are ready, compare our collections or tell us your date.