As any regular visitor to our blog knows, we love helping prospective brides and grooms make sure the only hiccups on their big day come from the champagne. Our huge range of luxury destination wedding venues, coupled with our dedicated Wedding Consultant to help arrange catering, entertainment (and any other extra services you happen to want, come to that) means we’ve made countless dreams for the big day come true. But no matter how meticulously everything is planned, from the seating plan to the favours, the one thing we could never guarantee was perfect weather for your wedding day.

Until now!

Yup, in order to ensure the most perfect of perfect days, and possibly with an eye on attempting some cunning supervillainy in the near future, we can now offer our customers a ‘cloud-bursting’ service that can 100% guarantee fair weather and clear skies for your wedding day! Currently available to customers organising a destination wedding in France (though we’re looking to expand to the UK and Italy if it takes off), the service employs the talents of pilots and meteorologists and takes over three weeks to plan, and uses silver iodide to ‘seed’ the clouds – essentially giving the water vapour something to condense around to produce rain.

Costs start at £100,000, which is a fair old whack of cash! But then again, you can’t put a price on perfection right?

More info on booking the service can be found at our dedicated page, but if you need to know more, check out our FAQs below!

Q: How did cloud seeding begin?

A: It may sound like science fiction, but cloud seeding was developed in the 1940s by US chemist Vincent Schaefer. A laboratory discovery led to the realisation that flecks of dry ice converted super-cooled water droplets (those existing as water at temperatures lower than freezing as in clouds) to ice crystals. Trials in the atmosphere soon followed, and operational and research cloud seeding projects began in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s.

Q: How does cloud seeding work?

A: Cloud bursting (AKA cloud seeding) is a form of weather modification, causing clouds to drop rain and dissipate quickly.

Cloud-bursting works by dispersing substances into the air, containing super-cooled water in an attempt to cause them to disappear, modify their structure, or alter the intensity of their phenomena.

Cloud seeding is now considered a mainstream tool, primarily to improve rain precipitation and snow. New technology and research have produced reliable results that make cloud seeding a dependable activity.

Q: Is cloud seeding bad for the environment?

A: The activity of cloud seeding has been taking place since the 1940s and there is no evidence that suggests cloud seeding creates any significant negative environmental impacts on the environment.

The published scientific literature clearly shows that no environmentally harmful effects arising from cloud seeding with silver iodide aerosols have been observed; nor would they be expected to occur.

Q: How long does it take to burst a cloud?

A: The cloud will be burst over a period of 24 hours. The project itself will take around 3 weeks all in all. It would take a week to get the aeroplane, pilot and meteorologist to France and back. The crew will need to be on the ground at least a week before the event.

Q: Isn’t it dangerous for other planes?

A: Each country has its own rules about flying aeroplanes. If the wedding happened to be in proximity to a commercial airport then often airports will prohibit flying at the proper place in relation to the clouds. The controllers are going to give all the attention to their traffic. As a result, the service will only be available a minimum of 30 miles from any domestic airports.

Q: Can success be guaranteed?

A: Yes, success can be guaranteed, however, if a natural disaster such as a hurricane were to occur this cannot be controlled.

Q: Could there be any arguments about cloud ownership?

A: Occasional rows break out between countries over who “owns” the rain from clouds, however, nothing has ever been proven.

Q: Isn’t cloud seeding unnatural?

A: Scientists have been modifying weather systems on a much larger scale than cloud-seeding projects for a number of years.

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