After falling in love in one national park and then getting engaged in another national park, it seemed fitting for us to want to get married in a national park. Steve and I have visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks the previous year and loved it there! And so, we started investigating the options, costs, and logistics for a wedding across the country and in a national park!
We started planning this wedding in 2003. Mind you, the first iphone came out in 2007. So while we used websites and the internet, we still had to make lots of phone calls, snail mail, and even use the fax machine! (We really aren’t that old, but this sounds old thinking about the technology changes!) Check out my huge planning binder!
Wedding magazines helped a lot with ideas and planning suggestions for destination weddings. I remember finding one issue of Martha Stewart Wedding that had a a western-style wedding in it. That wedding incorporated their own western looks into a beautiful wedding. It definitely inspired me to add our own touches to our wedding.
For our wedding, we wanted a mix of a formal wedding, yet set in the national park. We wanted the wedding to reflect us!
For our attire, we wore a formal wedding dress and tuxedos, but had photos done outside by this famous barn (T.A. Moulton Barn) and at the log chapel (Chapel of the Transfiguration). My dress ended up with some grass stains on the bottom, but didn’t care at all!
We rode a bus as our transportation to photos, the chapel, and back to the lodge.
At the reception in the Jackson Lake Lodge, we had a stuffed animal surrounded by berries from our florist as our centerpieces. Each table had a unique national park stuffed animal and we named each table after a different national park. Our head table was the Grand Teton National Park with a moose.
We created the wedding and reception into something really special that fit us and our personalities.
Enjoy some more photos from this amazing day!
I would highly recommend having a wedding in a national park!
