bride and groom embrace in the forest
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Guerrilla Flash Mob Wedding in the Rockies | Real Hindsight Advice

Destination Ski Wedding in Breckenridge

ski bride getting ready

Morag & Kevin’s Wedding
February 4, 2012
Breckenridge, Colorado

The bride and groom live in Boston and they had guests coming from all over, so they chose Breckenridge Colorado as it was a central location and easier for everyone to attend.

wedding rings and a breckenridge bridegroom and grromsmen getting ready at breckenridge

From the Photographer:

This wedding, hands down, was the most unique wedding that I have had the privilege of shooting. First of all, it was a guerrilla-style wedding. The plan was to arrive in a predetermined spot, do the ceremony, and then skedaddle before we were discovered. Morag and Kevin had scouted a private glade off of a ski run with the help of Google Maps. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting about 70 people into this glade without anyone noticing. It took a little ninja-style coordination but I have to say, I’m really impressed that we were able to pull this off!

bride and groom in front of skis

breckenridge ski area wedding party in matching beanies and hats secret wedding in the woods secret wedding ceremony at Breckenridge ski area bride and groom ski portraits bride and groom holding skis ten mile station at breckenridgebride and groom at tenmile station

bride and groom skiing away bride and groom embrace in the forest

Tell us a bit about your wedding:

We decided when we got engaged in October that we didn’t want to have a long engagement or a super-traditional wedding. We thought about what we could do — what would be fun. Ultimately, we decided that since we both love skiing and winter, it would be fun to get married the weekend between our birthdays in February. We decided on Colorado because we have friends and family on both sides of North America. It’s a good place to ski and there are lots of flights to Denver. After looking at various ski hills/towns/resorts we settled on Breckenridge. It’s a proper little town and there are plenty of non-ski based activities that our non-skiing guests could do to entertain themselves!

For the actual day, we thought it would be fun to have a ski weekend theme throughout the wedding day. We got married on the slopes, had a ski-in BBQ reception, and then a bar party in town. We worked out all the venues and most of the logistics online. The first time we saw any of the venues was 3-4 days before the wedding! Exciting!

The exact location for the ceremony was ideally somewhere in the woods. It needed to be private but  easily accessed from a ski lift. We also wanted to have somewhere warm where our guests could hang out before the ceremony started, and somewhere that Kevin and I could ski off from when the mob dissolved.

The guerilla/flash-mob wedding just evolved from there, partly because we didn’t want to ask permission — forgiveness is much easier! When we finally found the actual site late on Tuesday afternoon (we had pre-scouted the general area via Google Maps) it was a huge relief. It’s absolutely incredible that we found somewhere so amazingly perfect. That’s it really. We wanted a ski weekend with friends and family that we just happened to get married in the midst of.

What are some things you’re glad you did?

  • That we had a couple days in Breckenridge, were it was just the two of us before the wedding to sort out final details and find/choose the wedding site and adjust to the altitude.
  • We got married in the snow.
  • We rented a house big enough that we could host the come-and-go-as-you-want afternoon BBQ reception. This really allowed us to catch up with all our friends and family who came to celebrate with us.

Anything you wish you had done?

I don’t think I would change a thing. Maybe I would have thought of something to say during the reception speeches.

Anything you wish you hadn’t done?

Aside from drinking a bit too much at the bar reception, I would keep it all as it was.

Anything you wish you hadn’t worried about?

The main thing I was worried about was getting people to the wedding site and not being too late. This did mean that I didn’t get a ski run in before skiing down to the site but the hot chocolate in the chalet up at the top of the mountain was good. That being said I wish we’d taken a different lift up to the top of Peak 9 as Jane (maid of honor) and I had to do this crazy uphill traverse/slog to get to the top of Upper Lehman, the ski run we had to take to get to the wedding. That was a little tiring!

What is your very best hindsight advice?

Have fun and don’t get caught up in details. Be very clear in advance about game-day plans to avoid misunderstandings and friction.

Team Wedding