Brides Pay $35 to Plan Nuptials for Nice Days

Finding out what the weather is going to be like a year or two from now is a chancy--and expensive--proposition, well beyond the reach of most people.

And few of us really have a pressing need to know whether it is likely to rain next March 23.

But Tustin meteorologist Paul Ruch--who charges his private clients about $2,000 a year for long-range precipitation forecasts--has found one group of people who are vitally interested.

He sells rain forecasts to prospective brides who don’t want their carefully planned weddings dampened. The matrimonial forecasts can be ordered up to 2 years in advance.

It started as a lark when a friend from Ruch’s days in the restaurant business started a wedding planning firm and asked Ruch to provide rain forecasts. The friend included that service in an advertisement published in Bride magazine last year.

“Next thing I knew,” said Ruch, “Bride called me for an interview.” The magazine ran a small feature and a new service was born.

Wedding forecasts won’t make him rich--Ruch charges $35 for the service--but they are fun, he said, and they help get his name in circulation.

Prospective brides (or bridegrooms, for that matter) send Ruch Weather Services a check and a request for a forecast for the month in which the wedding is planned. Ruch sends the bride a daily “rain risk” chart for that month and follows it up with a phone call “to walk her through it and answer questions.”

Ruch advises brides--as he advises his commercial clients--”not to bet that it will rain on a risk day, but to bet that it won’t rain on a dry day.” He also tells them to avoid any rain-sensitive events for 48 hours on either side of a risk day.

He said he receives about half-dozen wedding forecast orders each month, and about that many inquiries that don’t end in a sale.