The short version.
We observed four price patterns.
Pick your destination.
The peaks show search demand, so a few spots have peak demand in a month that isn't the priciest. Each card below shows you the peak month, the cheaper month we'd book instead, and what the weather is like in the cheaper month. We understand there may be some weather outliers or differing opinions on weather.
Go here, not there.
If your date is set but you aren't sure where you want to go, this is the best and worst deal each month, counting only places with good weather in that month.
How we did this.
The 20 destinationsThey came from the places that show up again and again in wedding-planning lists like The Knot's best U.S. destination wedding spots, narrowed to the ones where we had enough search and rate data to trust. A few well-known spots, Aspen and Banff among them, were too thin on data and were swapped for close substitutes.
Peak monthPeak month is the month couples most want to get married in, measured by wedding-venue searches for that month, not when hotels cost the most. Hotels spike for conventions and tourists too. Where search data was thin we used the price peak instead, and flagged it on the card.
The month we recommendIt is the cheapest one near the peak that still has good weather, usually two or three months away. For a few destinations, we push the pick further out to dodge hurricane season. That's why we recommend Charleston and Savannah in January instead of May.
Hurricane beltMiami, Key West, St. Augustine, Savannah, and Charleston are not recommended between June and November, even when those months are cheaper.
Good weatherGood weather is a 0 to 100 score based on temperature, humidity, and storm or fire season. A month qualifies if it scores at least 83% of that destination's best month. We rank picks by demand and price, so occasionally a recommendation is made outside the good weather window. We flag it when it happens.
The month-by-month tableIt is stricter. A month needs a 90 or better, and we removed a few the model likes and we don't: St. Augustine in May, Nashville in June, Temecula in summer.