I'm A Bride on Skis!

Nick and I decided to have a winter ski wedding basically as soon as we got engaged (I do have to give him credit for that idea!) and as soon as I saw pictures of this bride snowboarding at Granby Ranch:

(photo credit here)

 

I knew that we were going to get married at Sol Vista at Granby Ranch and I knew that I was going to ski in my dress. The only problem was finding a photographer... because while I loved the idea of the bride above, I wanted my pictures to look more like this:

(photo credit here)

 

and so... I hired that photographer! I am completely convinced that Steve Z is the best photographer in Denver. We interviewed quite a few and he certainly is the only photographer who, when I told him I wanted to ski in my wedding dress, said "totally! no problem, I can just strap my gear on my back and ski down with you guys!"  He is a phenomenal skier and basically skied backwards for two entire runs with us so that he could snap pictures of us skiing. It was pretty freekin' cool!

This photo was actually shot by his assistant who was also an amazing skier!

 

We took two runs after the ceremony. The first one, was with about 20 of our friends and it was absolutely the most fun ski run I have EVER done. Everyone was cheering (including people we didn't know on the mountain and on the ski lift above us) and the energy was just off the charts. It was an absolute blast!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we got to the bottom, we were welcomed by a huge crowd of our non-skiing guests, all hooting and hollering for us!

 we had a quick smooch for all the cameras...

and then we hopped back on the lift for our second run.

 

The second run was just the two of us and the photographers and it was almost as much fun as the first.

Steve had scoped out a run for us that had some fun little obstacles (for the kids) and we had a blast skiing through them together!

 

 

 

Did you notice yet that I'm wearing pink skis to match my wedding dress? My friend Randi hooked me up from the ski shop she works at! I LOVE THEM!

 

Ok, I'm not quite the extreme skier that other bride was, but to give me some credit, those pictures were taken the day after her wedding! At the time we took these ones, I still had to go inside and our formal portraits, and make it to my reception in one piece! BUT We had a TON of fun on our two runs - it certainly made for a memorable day, and between the bridal party yoga (at 7am) and the two ski runs, I'd say I got more exercise on my wedding day than the average bride! Not too shabby!

 



My Winter Ski Wedding: The Details

Throughout the last year, I spent basically every minute of my spare time planning for my wedding. I really couldn't help myself. Just before the wedding I had discovered Pinterest and was getting into crafting and trying new recipes... and once the wedding kicked in, my Pinning went up to a whole new level.  I was pretty much exactly like this "girl":

I basically stole all of my ideas from Pinterest and Weddingbee.com and then spent 11 months DIYing (Do It Yourself) my wedding. And here are the results. I present to you, my details!

The first DIY was our post card Save the Dates which introduced our snowy mountain wedding theme:

Then came our invitations (designed by an amazing friend and painfully printed, cut, and assembled by myself)

I took the colors, fonts, and images from the invitations and used them on all of the paper at the wedding.  For the ceremony, we had hot coco and hand warmers (even though it was sunny and almost 40 degrees!). The hand warmers have a little poem on them "Thank you for joining us on top of this hill, we know that it may give you a chill, so please warm your hands as we say our vows, and before you know it we can all go back down!"

And our programs:

The flower girls held baskets made by yours truly and threw snow on the aisle:

And the ring "bear"

carried a little wooden box for our rings:

 

our aisle was actually six sets of ski poles with organza drapped through it:

And then - after a couple of ski runs - it was on to the reception.  Our guests were greeted by a table with our escort cards and guest book:

The escort cards were actually little (fake) lift tickets designed again by my friend

and the guest book was the mail box and an array of Colorado post cards:

All of our guests filled out the post cards and put them in the mailbox. After the wedding we gave them all to my MOH (Allie) and throughout our first year of marriage, she will mail us post cards from our guests. We've already received two - it's so fun!

After the guests picked up their escort cards, they found their tables by looking for the home-made table numbers - which were pictures of me and Nick as kids!

I think they were a big hit!

 

 Once they found their seats, they got another treat: S'mores!

Which were put together with the help of my family just a couple days before the wedding!

 

 

The card also had a poem on the back, "if wedding cake doesn't do the trick, head out back and grab a stick, we've got some skewers, we've got a fire, so toast your marshmallows to your heart's desire."

 

At some point in the night, many of our guests made their way to our gift table and deposited a card into my DIY card box:

 Eventually, Nick and I also found our seats by the little signs hanging on them (made by Nick's sister and brother-in-law)

 

After dinner (I was starving!!) it was time to cut the cake! It was actually a whole foods cake (YUM!) that sat on a tree slice cake stand (thanks again to Nick's sister and brother-in-law!) and was topped by some bride and groom pine cones. The bride is actually wearing a little piece of tool from my own wedding dress! 

When I write it out like this... it doesn't seem like that many projects (only 12?) but then I have to remember that I made over 100 each of the STD's, the invitations (which were comprised of over 1,000 cut pieces of paper!), the S'mores, the hand warmers, and the escort cards, and I guess that kind of is a lot of work!!!

Thankfully, the one thing I did not have to worry about were flowers and center pieces. My ABSOLUTELY AMAZING friend, Nathan, and his partner, Tom, own a flower shop in Pittsburgh (Hens and Chicks) and they absolutely knocked it out of the park!

 

 

 

I could not have asked for more beautiful arrangements. We got compliments from all of our guests and despite the fact that everyone was from out of town, not a single centerpiece was left behind!

 

Of course, they did all of the flowers for the wedding party as well.  

 

 

 

 

 As a side note, Nathan also picked out my wedding dress and had the idea to have the wedding party in matching jeans, jackets, scarves, and hats! I am one lucky girl to have a friend like him!!!

 As of course you call all tell, I'm just thrilled with how it all came together. Thanks a TON to all of my friends and family who helped me put the day together. It was definitely the best day of my life!