I'm baaack! We had our 11 day weddingmoon in the Canadian Rockies! It was amazing! We were married on day 5 of the trip. We spent 14-15 hours driving on the first and last day, so we had 9 days of sightseeing in between. We managed to hike 9 days straight in 7 different parks. We even did a 6 mile hike on our wedding day! We had about 2 hours to get ready after the hike.
I cancelled the hair appointment at Chateau Lake Louise (remember the sight unseen place?), so I could do a wedding day hike instead. I am glad I did. My photographer thought it looked like I had my hair professionally done, but I bought some hot rollers and did my own hair/makeup. It got a tad windy during photos, so I'm glad I didn't spend the $100+ for it to get all messed up anyway! It started out looking nice anyway!
We camped for 4 of the nights (with showers), splurged on the fancy lodge for 3 nights and hotels for the other 3 nights. We only had set reservations for 3 of the nights total (one camp spot and two at the lodge). The rest we did on the fly!
GOOD: Well everything! I loved getting married privately/eloping! The whole day was for us. Not a drop of drama, just pure exciting anticipation! We did spend a couple days hiking with the in-laws. Very little to stress about. A bottle of champagne for each night of our stay (two were gifts from friends), the detailed and personal service at Emerald Lake Lodge, they did all the wedding related stuff for us. My bouquet made me tear up it was so beautiful. We had our own maître d' for our wedding meal who knew where every berry, meat, veggie came from. Our photographer was GREAT. I wanted a first look and she took care of the timing, where to do the look, how to order it all. We were pretty clueless, so I’m so glad she made it all happen. We got photos in a canoe, in the woods, it was pretty fun. Some photos to come this week!
BAD: Nothing was bad honestly. I have two small regrets. I regret getting that 1 inch of my dress taken in. I didn’t think I needed it honestly, but I had two different seamstresses tell me I should take it in so that I don’t have to pull up my gown all night so I went with the professionals opinions.
Well, I couldn’t zip the gown up myself and it was so uncomfortable to sit down in the dress (felt like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube), that I had to go change before we even ordered our food! I wanted to stay in my dress all night long, but it was impossible! Standing, etc was fine though.
Also I forgot to have the photographer get a photo of our cake. She was, however, long gone come dessert time. Our maître d' happened to slice the cake himself to serve us and we did not even get to see the cake prior to cutting. So I have no photos of it intact sadly. Those are the only two bummers, so not too bad!
UGLY: Nothing was really ugly at all! Although, I was sad that my mom and sister did not contact us (even email) on the wedding day. I did tell them my cell would not work in Canada, but they knew the name of the lodge resort at least. One sister did leave a voice mail on the lodge room phone to wish us good luck so one of them knew how to call internationally. They said they tried to order us some wine, but they said they wouldn’t accept their credit card. Our US friends were able to order champagne and a fruit basket just fine, so maybe they did not know what they were doing. Not really ugly, but I guess I had a small hope that they would attempt to reach out a little more! I have to let go of any expectations of them!