June: The Wedding Month
June has been a popular month for weddings for quite a long time, and it still is today, though for different reasons.
Historically, the name of the month “June” comes from Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage and fertility. So that link goes back a really long way.
In the Celtic tradition, young couples would often pair up on the Cross-Quarter Day of Beltane, May 1. (Cross Quarter days divided the calendar into four quarters.) They would court for a few months before holding a ceremony on the next Cross-Quarter Day, August 1. But as young couples throughout history are, they often became impatient, so the timing was accelerated to the middle of June.
Today, June remains a perfect month for your wedding. Schools are letting out, so guests can bring their children. Father’s Day weekend is about the only date that might “compete” with your ceremony, so planning is a bit easier than months with multiple holidays. Flower availability gets better and flower prices may actually start to go down a bit as inventories increase. Even the longer daylight will help, especially if your photographer likes to shoot in natural daylight.
And of course, there’s always the weather. In Luray last year, the average high temperature was a fresh 83 degrees, and there were 22 days of sunshine.
While not necessarily connected to any particular month, the cost of a wedding in Luray-Page County can be the most powerful motivator of all to hold a wedding here. 1n 2017, in the Washington, DC metro area, the average cost of wedding was about $44,000, assuming 130-140 guests. While exact comparisons are difficult, and travel costs should be factored in, a storybook wedding in Page County can easily cost more like $12,000—or a great deal less.
Were you even aware you can get married in Shenandoah National Park? Or Luray Caverns? Other possibilities include hotels grand and intimate, B&B, inns, vineyards, and out-of-the-way cabins. Investigate many of those options here.
Of course, a great advantage of a destination weddings is to turn it into a short vacation for you and your guests. Once the wedding is over, choose from a multitude of outdoor recreation options—canoeing on the Shenandoah River, horseback riding, hiking in Shenandoah National Park or George Washington National Forest, or swimming at Lake Arrowhead. Luray’s Main Street offers a splendid venue of theater, live music, and local dining options.
Wedding photos where the Blue Ridge Mountains are the backdrop for the ceremony make for priceless memories. And the growth of wedding venues in the Valley has generated all the planning and wedding-service help you will need. The Luray-Page County Chamber of Commerce even holds an annual forum for those in various aspects of the wedding business to exchange ideas, share experiences and learn from each other.
Regardless of what month you plan to hold your wedding, give Luray and Page County serious consideration.
