Ok, seriously long post but I found many of my wonderful vendors by reading these posts so hopefully the level of detail is helpful rather than overwhelming! Also, I’m throwing in “reviews” for non-vendor stuff (like our reveal/ceremony locations), just in case any of it is helpful for your planning…
First off, we were very fortunate in the quality of the people we got to work with. I realize that these people are in sales for a living but I’ve worked with many folks in customer service who didn’t have a clue what service meant and I was so thrilled at the wonderfully helpful and friendly folks that we found to surround ourselves with on our wedding day. We said many times that we wanted the day to be as low-stress and happy as possible and made sure to pick vendors that would help create that atmosphere…
Reveal Location: 4x4 road off of Ute Pass road, off of Hwy 9 north of Silverthorne. A++++
Ok… indulge me for a moment…
So picture this, my gorgeous groom is walking up a steep dirt road through the woods, he strolls by beautiful clusters of columbine and lupine, he can hear the birds singing and his head is full of thoughts that this is his wedding day. At the end of the little road, a small hill comes into view.
As he continues up and crests the hill, what is slowly revealed to him is a panoramic view of majestic snowcapped mountains… and standing in the middle of a field of wildflowers, with the big blue sky and mountains as her backdrop is his bride… breathlessly waiting and listening for his footsteps….
This is what the groom saw as he crested the hill…
It was one of the most romantic and beautiful moments of the day and of my life!!!!
In case it isn’t obvious, my groom and I are absolutely in love with the spectacular Colorado outdoors and wanted to showcase that natural beauty throughout our wedding. We found this gorgeous setting while we were scouting for ceremony sites. Ultimately, we didn’t use it for the ceremony because the last quarter mile is a very steep/rough 4x4 road and we couldn’t expect our guests to drive or walk up it. We loved it so much, however, that we decided to do our reveal here before the ceremony. We had actually planned to do the reveal and photos before the ceremony at the ceremony site, but we changed our minds the weekend of the wedding. We decided that if we were early or on time on the morning of the wedding, we would make the 45 minute drive to this location for the reveal and photos…and I am so very very glad we did. The views of the Gore Mountain Range are absolutely breathtaking (when our photographers and videographers saw it for the first time on the morning of the wedding, they seemed as giddy and excited about the views as we were, yay!) In addition to the magical views, there were gorgeous patches of wildflowers, including columbines, just off the 4x4 road so we ended up going back later for more pictures. Check out the photos and you can see why this was a must do for us. If you love the mountains the way we do and are getting married in the Keystone/Silverthorne/Breckenridge area (or are looking for an amazing Rock the Dress location) you may want to give this place a try. The 4x4 road isn’t marked but after the turn from Hwy 9 onto Ute Pass Road, the turn onto the 4x4 road is on the right hand side 3.2 miles up Ute Pass Road.
Moments after seeing each other
We got SO lucky with the weather! I so badly wanted bright blue skies and puffy white clouds for our wedding day... just one of many dreams that came true for me that day.
Ceremony Venue: Pass Lake near Loveland Pass A++++
We searched all over Colorado (Telluride, Crested Butte, Estes Park, etc etc) trying to find an outdoor venue for our ceremony. We were hoping to find something with gorgeous mountain vistas since we are both into hiking and photography. But we also wanted it to be convenient for our guests – easy to drive to and easy to walk to. Pass Lake fit the bill perfectly! It’s right off Hwy 6 with just a short walk from the parking lot to the spot we picked for our ceremony. The views were spectacular. Best of all, there was no cost. We checked the guidelines for the ranger station for the area and it said that if you have more than 75 people for an event you should request a permit, but since our guest list was right at this number we just gave it a go and it all worked out perfectly. The location did have its challenges – there’s no restroom facilities or power. We rented a PA system and generator to make sure everyone could hear in case of wind. Also, the short road from Hwy 6 to the parking lot was covered by snow until the weekend before our wedding (a wee bit stressful as we drove up each weekend for the last few weeks to check the melting progress - who knew it would still be snow covered in July!!) Finally, there was a little stream across the path that goes from the parking lot to where we decided to have the ceremony and it was pretty small when we scouted the area last September… but all that snowmelt made it a lot wider for July! Luckily for us, my dad and brother offered to build us a little bridge so our guests could easily walk across. I can’t believe how great it turned out! We offered to ferry people across the stream in one of our 4x4 vehicles as there is a 4x4 road that goes from the parking lot down past where we had our ceremony, but the bridge was so stable and nice that everyone just used that. We are so incredibly lucky to have such terrific family and friends who were willing to help out! I’m so glad the weather cooperated, it was a bit chilly but gorgeous blue skies! (fyi, if you decide to hold an outdoor high altitude ceremony just remember that thunderstorms often appear in the afternoon. We had the ceremony at 11am which worked out great, the rain did come but by then we were all in the indoor reception hall having lunch!) I’m so glad we decided to hold our ceremony here, we got a lot of compliments on the location and it was the perfect way to bring our love of the mountains into our wedding day.
To get there: if you are heading toward Keystone on Hwy 6 off of I25, take the very first right turn after you go by Loveland Pass. The road isn’t marked but it’s the only road near Loveland Pass and the road quickly ends in a little parking lot with a lake.
Ceremony Format: A++++
In case you aren’t aware, Colorado is one of the few states that allows you to marry yourselves. You don’t actually need witnesses or an officiant. When we picked up our marriage license, the instructions explained: you simply sign the marriage certificate twice, once as the officiants and once as the bride/groom (leaving the witness signatures blank).
We wanted our ceremony to be as personal and meaningful as possible so we wrote the entire ceremony (except for one poem). I have to say, now that it’s done, I totally understand why most people don’t do this – it is a LOT of work! But, I am so unbelievably glad we did. We chose to honor 4 qualities of our relationship that we believe will also be vital to our marriage: Communication, Shared Values, Friendship and Love. We asked 4 important people from our lives to officiate and each one read a section and then shared a personal message. Since we were writing the ceremony together, including our vows, we also decided to include a section that would be a surprise for the day of: we each wrote a love letter to the other so that we would have something in the ceremony that we hadn’t heard before. There were many moments of laughter and tears throughout the ceremony, but the love letters were definitely romantic and from the heart and something I will treasure always. Finally, my groom came up with a great closing to the ceremony – we finished with the groom saying: “With the exchanging of these rings, and the power vested in us by the wonderful state of Colorado, we pronounce ourselves husband and wife.” Then I said: “You may now kiss the bride” J
Photography: Studio JK (Denver): www.studiojk.com/ :A
When we looked at photographers we knew that we wanted someone who could help us get some fantastic shots of the lovely Colorado scenery. But we also knew that whoever we chose would be spending a lot of time with us on the big day so we also wanted the personalities to be a good match. We found a great combination with Joe & Joyce, a husband/wife team. We could see the talent in the photos on their website and after a day spent with them doing our engagement shoot we knew that we would have a blast with them at the wedding. They have such fun, cheerful, can-do attitudes and their enthusiasm is wonderful. We had such a fun time with them during our engagement shoot – running around in the snow in Rocky Mountain National Park in March, that when it came to the day of the wedding, it felt like we just had 2 more friends sharing the day with us!
Videography: Lupher Arts (Denver): www.lupherarts.com/ ALoved these guys! It’s a family owned business, which I always think is cool. We met with Mandi, who was very friendly and helpful. She’s the wife of one of the owners/videographers. The day of we had the owners – two brothers, Brad & Travis. They were terrific – friendly, good sense of humor, obviously love what they do. They pretty much faded into the background which is nice. We made a change to our day of timeline for the morning, changing where we would have our reveal and photos before the ceremony to a place with better morning light. We explained that it was up a very short but rough 4x4 road and they were completely flexible and all for it. I noticed that they posted photos from that area on their Facebook site with a caption of “It was a very busy weekend, and it's shots like this that make all of the hard work worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!” That made us feel fantastic, sounds like they had almost as much fun as we did 
) We should be getting the video in the next couple weeks and are very excited to see it. We got some of the raw footage early and what we’ve seen so far looks amazing!Wedding Dress: A Total Image Bridal (Arvada) www.atotalimagebridal.com/: A
Keep in mind that my mom has only 1 daughter and it took me quite a while to find my Prince Charming so my mom was totally ready for all the wedding planning, especially the dress shopping (and I have to admit it can be addictive trying on all those pretty dresses and feeling like a princess) So we ended up going to just about every dress store in Colorado Springs, Denver and Boulder! One note: even though I didn’t end up getting my dress from The Bridal Collection off Belleview in Englewood, I highly recommend giving them a try. The customer service was phenomenal (Chelsea seemed to be genuinely excited for me and did a terrific job suggesting possible accessory options – I am totally clueless about fashion and accessories so it was very helpful. She would give me necklaces, veils and bracelets to try on and it made me realize how those things could really “finish” the look). After many store visits, though, we found my dress at A Total Image in Arvada. Again, lovely ladies to work with. The location is a bit interesting – you feel like you are in the industrial part of town, but the prices, quality and range is very reasonable. The dress I tried on and picked turned out to be discontinued so they let me buy the one I tried on for half price – YAY!
I loved my dress. It was the classic A-line/ballgown style but I liked that it had off the shoulder sleeves so that it was a bit different from the usual strapless dress. Also, I absolutely loved all the beading on the bodice and the train, it was so sparkly and beautiful and made me feel like a princess. The designer is Mary’s and one thing they are known for is they often have a pocket in the dress. I tried it on twice before I even realized it had a pocket and I was so excited when I found it (I love things that are pretty AND functional!) My mom gave me a blue handkerchief that was my grandmother’s as my something blue and something old and it was nice to have the hankie in my pocket, I definitely needed it throughout the day – lots of happy tears!
Seamstress: Chrisine Hoyt www.chstudios.com/ A
Christine was great to work with – friendly and nice. I wanted to swap out the zipper back on my dress for a corset/lace-up and when I called around the prices were pretty high at most places I checked. But Christine did it for $100 and also did my bustle for $60 and the quality was great! I loved how she did the bustle so that all the gorgeous beadwork on my train still showed. She also walked my mom through exactly how to do the bustle which was very helpful. Finally, she gave me a piece of advice for wearing my dress that was so helpful: how to use the restroom in a big dress: sit backwards. It made it so easy!! ;o)
Mom bustling my dress
Tuxes: Denver Tux www.denvertux.com/site/newsite/index.cfm: A
We checked out Men’s Wearhouse and Al’s Formal wear but what we didn’t like about these places is that they order their tuxes in. Which means that the guys don’t get to try on their actual tux until days before the wedding. Al’s lets you order in 2 or 3 tuxes ahead of time to try on but then if you want to try on more varieties, they charge you. We didn’t like the idea of having them shipped in and then if something didn’t fit quite right having to hope that the replacement tux got in on time. Denver Tux on the other hand, keeps all their tuxes in stock. So you can go in and try on whatever you’d like without the hassle of ordering something in. And when you pick it up you know that they have other stock available right in the store if something doesn’t fit quite right (unless of course it’s rented out for prom or another wedding). We wanted the groom to stand out a bit from the groomsmen and dads so we put them in a standard black tux while the groom wore the full dress tails. At first he was a little hesitant that the tails would look old fashioned but when he tried it on he told me he couldn’t go without it. And boy I’m sooo glad! When I saw him in it, I about swooned… He’s 6’5” and it really showed off his long/lean frame… he looked so elegant and dashing! *Sigh*
Bridesmaid dresses
I was really hoping to find something under $100 so that my bridesmaids wouldn’t have to shell out a lot of money for something they most likely wouldn’t wear again. We got lucky at a David’s Bridal sale and found 2 dresses in my color in the right sizes and only $60! Yay.
Chair rentals: Tents & Events, Dillon http://www.tentsandevents.com/: A
We needed to rent white folding chairs for the ceremony. They were affordable and easy from Tents & Events. We picked them up and brought them back to save on the delivery charge.
Aisle Runner: JoAnn’s Fabrics: A
I wanted an aisle runner just in case the ground was a bit damp/muddy but I wanted something pretty wide since my dress was a very traditional (big) A line skirt. Everything I seemed to find in stores and online was only 36 inches across which didn’t seem like much. But when I looked in the tablecloth section of JoAnn’s I found the perfect solution – it looked like white lace but was actually plastic, which I liked so that if the ground was wet it wouldn’t seep through. I got it at half off so I think I ended up with over 60 feet for about $35!
See - my dress needed an extra wide aisle runner!
PA Rental: Spectrum AV (Denver): C
We needed a PA system for the ceremony site in case of wind, etc so the music and officiants could be heard. We rented a speaker, mixer (for the MP3 player), wireless microphone and a generator to run it all. This is the only place where I felt the customer service was definitely lacking. They quoted us one price for the generator and then just a couple days before we were due to pick it up they told us they didn’t have that one and they had to get it from some other vendor and it was $50 extra so we had to pay that. Not cool in my opinion, a good vendor will eat the cost since we had an agreement at the lower price.
Flowers: Hillside Consultants (Colorado Springs) http://www.hillside-consultants.com/: A
I talked to a few different flower people before finding Dawn. She was great to work with. I am definitely a detail oriented person (aka anal retentive) and she was very understanding and had a great sense of humor. She didn’t mind the overly descriptive emails and questions that I sent. I actually did everything over email/phone with her which made it super easy. One of the best things about her is that she has a TON of photos for you to browse through. So it was easy to just look at her past bouquets and bouts and then tell her what we wanted based on that (leaves like this one, flowers like that one, etc). Her prices are VERY affordable and I ended up saving over $100 compared to the florist I was thinking of going with. Overall she was absolutely fantastic and I would recommend her to anyone without hesitation. One thing she did that was so cool – my bouquet was hot pink roses and was wrapped in ivory ribbon – she had our wedding date (July 10th, 2011) stitched in hot pink into the ribbon – what a special extra touch! FYI, if you look at my bouquet you’ll notice a few columbines as accents. We tried our best to find a nursery where we could buy some columbine plants to have in my bouquet (again to fit our mountain/hiking theme) and also to decorate the reception hall. But columbines are usually done blooming at the nurseries by June. Some lovely folks at Jared’s nursery did their best, talking with their growers and keeping me in the loop. In the end we got a couple plants with a few blooms. Dawn did a great job incorporating them into my bouquet. But if you want to try this I would say be very flexible and keep in mind that it might not happen, you can’t schedule mother nature!
The groom being a bit silly with the bouquet, but it's a good pic of both my bouquet and his bout. 
Reception Venue: Silverthorne Pavilion http://silverthornepavilion.wordpress.com/ (Silverthorne) A+
We worked with Blair from the Pavilion and you truly couldn’t meet a nicer more helpful person to work with! She was quick to answer any question – no matter how odd or small. We didn’t do a true ”cocktail hour” with drinks and hors d'oeuvres since it was a morning ceremony and lunch reception. But we knew that we’d be about 20-30 minutes behind everyone as we planned to stay a little while after the ceremony ended to take some posed family photos. The pavilion had the perfect setup – their main hall can easily be closed off and then the lobby, an outdoor patio and what they call the “breakout” room can be used for guests while they wait for the meal to start. We’re amateur shutterbugs and thought it might be fun to set up some of our photos in these rooms and make it kind of like an art gallery where people could mill around, chat, sign our guest book, etc. When we were at the Pavilion meeting with Blair, we mentioned this idea and she was so helpful. She explained that only gaffer’s tape could be used on the walls but that they had some easels and some special hooks for hanging pictures on the wall. She dashed down to their storage room to grab the hangars and easels to show us exactly what was available. And they were of no extra cost! (you can see the wall hangers in the picture showing the kids' gift bags). This venue is really quite amazing and I highly recommend it. They have 2 outdoor ceremony sites right outside the pavilion – one in front of a stream for a smaller party and the other on a big green lawn that could seat lots of folks (the picture of the guys in the tux section is on the lawn area). The lawn did have some great mountain views but it’s pretty easy to tell that you’re in the middle of a town which is why we opted to have ours up at the lake instead. They also have an upstairs section in the Pavilion that can hold about 60 or so people which is a great back up plan for your ceremony site in case of bad weather. We were so impressed with the functionality as well as the appearance of the Pavilion. It was very functional – bathrooms with plenty of stalls (it’s not fun to wait in a long line for a restroom!), a great sound system / microphone / LCD projector – we plugged our laptop in and used their sound system instead of paying for a DJ. We also loved how you could easily change the mood by dimming the lights – inside the main hall there’s no windows on the ground level (which is good because it would mostly just look at the parking lot) but they have lots of windows set into the ceiling and the shades are on a remote so you can leave them open to keep it bright and airy or close them down during a slideshow, etc. It really feels like they built this place specifically for weddings. If you google them it will probably take you to the main website which is pretty boring. Be sure to go to their blog which has the pricing and also has videos so you can get a good tour.
Guest Book: A
Instead of the traditional guest book, I found an idea online that I liked a lot. We put out little cards and sharpie pens, on the front were these instructions:
In lieu of a guest book, please share some happy thoughts on the back of this card. Don’t know what to write? Try starting with one of these phrases:Love is….
You know you’re in love when…
Once upon a time…
We wish you…And please don’t forget to sign your name.
Thanks you for sharing with us!
The evening of the wedding after all the hustle and bustle were through, we read through the stack of these and were amazed at how many thoughtful and sweet messages we got. They will be great keepsakes for our scrapbook.Bits & Pieces: Dollar Tree B+
I got a lot of stuff that we used for the wedding on sale at Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. But truthfully a lot of what we used for the wedding came from the Dollar Tree. Originally I was going to lean on my matron of honor who is a very artistic/crafty person to create ribbon bows for the chairs at the ceremony. BUT I found these really cool dummy-proof bows at Dollar Tree – you pull on these two strings and it creates a big beautiful bow. And they were only 50 cents each! A lot less work than creating them from scratch! Also – we wanted to keep the cost of the wedding favors down but also wanted to tie it into the hiking/outdoors/photography/wildflowers theme of the wedding, so we got these nice 5x7 frames from Dollar Tree and printed out some of our wildflower photos to put in each frame. They served as favors and as our table centerpieces. Dollar Tree really became my “go to” place for much of our wedding planning items. I had gotten bubbles at one of the craft stores but the ones at Dollar Tree were less expensive and I actually liked them a lot better (the ones I had found at the big craft store were very plain but the Dollar Tree ones had different heart shaped tops and had “Just Married” written on the tubes.)
Finally, we had about 13 kids attending the wedding and we wanted to give them little treat bags to help them have fun at the reception. We had a blast finding stuff at Dollar Tree, everything from friendship bracelet kits for the young girls to play-doh and coloring books for the younger tots. We even got the gift bags from the Dollar Tree too, it worked out great.
The bows turned out great!
The frames that we used as centerpieces / favors to tie in the wildflower theme.
The kids' gift bags seemed to be a big hit!
Catering: Harvest Catering (Silverthorne) www.harvest-catering.com: B
We had tastings with 3 different caterers and Harvest was head and shoulders above the rest. The food was delicious and the presentation was awesome. We went with a “breakfast for lunch” menu and had scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy and cinnamon French toast with fruit salad, breakfast sausages and country potatoes on the side. Unfortunately, the day of the wedding, my groom and I found the food to be lukewarm or cold. I’m not sure if their chafing dishes just weren’t powerful enough to keep things hot, but it definitely made the food not quite as tasty. However, some of the other guests I talked to (who usually complain about cold food) said their food was hot and delicious, so maybe it’s just because we were first through the line and the food on top wasn’t as hot as the food at the bottom/middle of the dishes. Overall, Christine did a wonderful job answering questions and making the process as smooth as possible to plan. Also, we wanted to include some family dishes to honor our heritage. We supplied the food and our moms were in charge of setting it up on the tables at the reception hall. Mom said that the caterer was very helpful in getting everything set out and looking nice. Finally, the caterer let us know that they box up leftovers if we provide containers so I made sure to bring some extra large ziplock bags and I can’t believe how much food we had to take home! We did a family breakfast to open gifts with our out of town visitors the day after the wedding and had plenty of yummy food to share.
Family dish: Kolaches
Family dish: Pagac
Cake: Intricate Icings (Erie) www.intricateicings.com/: A+
Loved the cake, loved the people. The folks here are super easy and friendly to work with. The only drawback is that they are in Erie which was a bit of a drive for us (Aurora) so the cake tasting was a bit of an extra effort, but totally worth it. We had tried their Zucchini Lime cake at a bridal show and were totally blown away. The hardest part was choosing flavors! We ended up going with the zucchini lime with cream cheese filling and the lemon cake with pineapple curd filling. For the day of, the cake was beautiful, moist and delicious. We loved the mountain themed icing and got plenty of compliments on how yummy it was. Bonus: no need to save the top layer – they bake you a small cake on your 1 year anniversary J
Linens: LinenTablecloth.com www.linentablecloth.com/: A+ We were going to rent linens (tablecloths, napkins, overlays, chair covers) but we discovered that it’s almost as cheap to buy them through this website as it is to rent and hopefully I can sell them on Craigslist or here to make some of that money back. I also liked having them ahead of time so that we could iron them and also because my family did most of the decorating at the reception hall before the caterers arrived, including setting up centerpieces. By having the linens we didn’t have to wait for the caterer to get started. The quality was great and they came in fast. I realized at the last minute that the number of chair covers I ordered matched the number of chairs at the guest tables… but I forgot the chairs at our head table (oops!) They have free shipping for orders over $50 and it arrives in about 7-10 days but even their “rush” shipping, which was 2 day, was pretty reasonable.
Transportation: American Dreams car rental, Denver http://americandreamscolorado.com/: A
We had decided not to do a limo or anything to save our budget… But the day before the wedding my soon-to-be-hubby surprised me with a cherry red Cobra Mustang convertible! Wow!! It was so much fun and so gorgeous. We had a blast driving it around all weekend and got some great photos with it on the day of the wedding. Don’t honestly know what it cost but am so glad he gave me such an awesome surprise (he knows I love Mustangs!) He told me the guys at the rental place were super nice and helpful, he had to search all over because none of the regular car rental places do convertible Mustangs anymore, but this place specializes in “dream cars” so if that’s something that might be fun for you, give them a call.
Hair: Beauty on Location by Liz www.beautyonlocationbyliz.com/: A+
I posted about my hair trial with Liz already (http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_colorado-denver_awesome-hair-trial-pip) She truly is an artist. I was absolutely stunned at what she was able to do with my fine straight hair during my hair trial and it was such a relief knowing that it was all taken care of for the big day. To top it all off, she is such a lovely, sweet and friendly gal to work with. Having someone talented do your hair is great, but having someone do it who so obviously loves what she does and has such a warm attitude, that is exactly what you should give yourself for your wedding day! Definitely give her a try, you won’t regret it.
Accessories
I wore my aunt’s bracelet as my something borrowed. As I mentioned above, my mom gave me a blue hankie of my grandmother’s as my something old and something blue (she also stitched a pink border around it which was our wedding color). For my something new, I found my necklace on sale at Macy’s, but I’d seen some that had a piece that goes down the back which I thought was very pretty. With the help of the lovely folks at the bead store String Beads in Highlands Ranch (http://www.stringbeadsinc.com/), I was able to add an extension to the back of my necklace and I was really happy with how it turned out. I liked it so much that I wore it for our formal night on our honeymoon cruise.
Shoes: Endless.com: A
I'm not really a shoe girl (buy most of mine from Payless) but I knew I'd be on my feet all day so I wanted something that was comfortable. The thing I loved about Endless is the shipping both ways is free and you can return shoes for any reason up to a year (as long as they haven't been worn). I was able to order a bunch and if I didn't like them or needed a different size, I just sent them back and tried something else. I ended up getting a pair of hot pink wedges from Butter for the ceremony (no heels since it was outside). Unfortunately they didn't really work for dancing and we had a waltz planned for our first dance so I also got white pumps from Beautifeel which I wore to all our dance lessons and they were seriously comfortable! Honestly though, some of my favorite photos of the day were with my hiking boots... I knew that we'd be running around the reveal location and figured my boots were the smart choice and I just swapped out to the "pretty" pink ones for the ceremony. But our photographers got some shots of the hiking boots and they just make me smile.
A different take on Cinderella...
Whew, if you actually read this whole thing, I think you deserve a prize! Hope it's useful in some way and best of luck to all you brides-to-be out there. I hope your day is as magical, memorable and moving as ours was!