Wedding Graduates: Katie and Shaughn (Part 1)

Katie and Shaughn's blog post is a little longer than usual because they felt it was important for readers to fully understand their wedding vision to truly understand the wedding tips they are sharing with us. Part 1 is on their wedding vision, part 2 are their wedding tips. Enjoy!

First I’ll give you a brief idea of what our wedding was like. My husband and I got married in the summer of 2011. It was not a very conventional wedding but one that we felt expressed who we were as a couple and as individuals. We decided what could be better than getting married at our favorite hiking destination in Jasper National Park, the Tonquin Valley. We had done this hike for the past 5 or 6 summers with our families and fell in love with the natural beauty and peacefulness of it. This hike is a 18.6 km hike into the valley where a quaint lodging facility is situated. The question was how do we get our families and friends in and pull off a wedding at the same time.  We waffled over this decision but knew in the end we couldn’t see ourselves getting married anywhere else and we would just have to make it work.

So after discussing it with the lodge owners and feeling their excitement in the idea we knew we could do it. We invited a small group of just under 20 of our family and closest friends that we knew would be able to tackle our wacky wedding plan. One major factor we needed to work out was photography and hopefully even video since only a small group of our nearest and dearest would be able to make this trip in. A great friend of mine and her boyfriend recently started up their own wedding photography and videography company Paper Tiger Media based out of Edmonton, AB. So when I approached them about our idea they were thrilled and more than willing to take the trip in with us. This would allow us to share our important day with friends and family back home.

Tonquin Valley Adventures consists of a number of little cabins for sleeping equipped with bedding, a cookhouse with two large tables to eat meals at, a cabin to hang out and sit by the fire and enjoy the beauty of the area, and a small shower facility. In the summer you can hike into this backcountry lodge and enjoy great staff and a home cooked meal.

The lodge has horses that can transport in some supplies so we sent in the dress, wedding clothes, some flowers and decorations and anything we could think of needing for the big day. I found a dress online that I had not thought ahead on but was so lucky that it could be rolled up in a ball and taken in and look the same when it was unrolled. The staff with the lodge Tonquin Valley Adventures planned all the food, which was above and beyond what we could have imagined. And most importantly we found a JP willing to take the hike in and marry us.

So with everything set for a go we packed with us any essentials we may need and took the hike in for our 2-night stay in the Rocky Mountains. We were so excited to also be showing our friends and family one of our favorite places.

We arrived to a thankfully sunny afternoon, considering just a week before it had been snowing in there. The staff helped us set up the docks and move boats at the shore of Amethyst lake where we wanted to hold the ceremony. With the boys already set out fishing and the shore sort of set up for a ceremony we relaxed into the beautiful Tonquin Valley.

We planned the ceremony for mid day the next day depending on weather, the nice thing being we could be fairly flexible seeing as all of us were already out there. The morning lent itself to some last minute decorating of the docks and getting ready in our makeshift outdoor salon. The sun held out long enough for us to have the ceremony we always dreamed of, the wind even keeping the nasty mosquitoes at bay. We were able to capture some pictures before the rain and hail took over for a short bit. We nestled in by the fire before enjoying a fabulous dinner and mini dance party.

To top it all off we didn’t stop there we really wanted the rest of our family and friends who were unable to be apart of the actual wedding to be able to celebrate with us. So we decided what could be better than a big campout where everyone could come out and celebrate and watch the video from our wedding. We held a weekend campout just outside of town, with live music and a BBQ dinner the following weekend. Though it was a lot of planning, things went off without a hitch and we wrapped up our wedding week with the whole gang of family and friends.

Katie and Shaughn

Photo Credit: Paper Tiger Media