Purple + Turquoise DIY Mountain Wedding | Estes Park Part 2

I grew up in Colorado, and the majority of my family still lives there. I knew if I wanted them to come, we would need to have a Colorado wedding. So what is the most beautiful part about Colorado? The Rocky Mountains, of course! I knew that having a mountain would not only be the perfect setting for pictures, but the atmosphere brought about a comfort and joy just to be surrounded by God’s amazing creation.

For the wedding itself our inspiration or theme was the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we wanted the whole ceremony and reception to be centered around Him, as a reminder for ourselves that this is the ultimate picture of marriage: Christ and the Church. But for the decorations and colors I found my inspiration in a couple of ways, first my husband really loves the color turquoise and I really love purple, so we wanted to include our two favorite colors. For the decorations though, a great friend of mine Elle Painter, handmade all of the decorations as our wedding gift. She did an incredible job! When she asked me what I wanted, I knew I could tell her anything and she would do it, however she and I have pretty much the same style so I told her that I trust her and to make whatever she thought would look nice. I gave her some ideas but she took them and ran with them. When she started telling me what she wanted to do with the antique lace and wine bottles, I was like, “YES!” She knew exactly what I wanted and made the decorations so unique. I thank God for her loving service and amazing talents.

There are many more than three things that I am glad that I did, or we did, but to choose three I would say:

• I am glad that we focused our wedding around the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the power of salvation. This was of utmost importance to us as believers and we prayed often that God would use our wedding to bring people to Himself.
• The second thing that I am glad we did was write our own songs. God has gifted both Jeremy and I in songwriting and we both really desired to write a couple of songs for our wedding. We were able to sing one of them at our reception, and the other one we had recorded and played while we did the foot washing. This was so sweet to me to have unique songs that spoke from the heart and were really centered on what we desired them to be, and that was Christ.
• The third thing I am glad that we did was have more than just the wedding day with the wedding party. Because we had a destination wedding, the wedding party came out a couple days early and it allowed time for all of us, my friends and his, to hang out and enjoy one another for a couple of days. This I think took some of the stress off, and really allowed me to savor the sweetness of our friend relationships.

Hmmm, this one is kind of hard. For me there really aren’t a lot of things that I would have changed about the wedding. But if I had to choose I guess they would be

• That during the reception we would have had a more time to really go around and talk to people while everyone was still there. We had a time set apart to do this, but by the time we did it a lot of people had already left.
• I probably would have also tried to spend more time with my bridesmaids. I feel like I spent a lot of time with them, but I think there were probably opportunities where I could have spent much more time with them. They are my best friends and I don’t know how much I will see them now that I am married.
• I wish I had given credit to everyone that helped out with the wedding, set up decorations, planning, and everything that went into it, at the actual reception. My mom deserves the most credit as she did a LOT for me while I was in Nicaragua and even while I was at home, she was the one that took all the stress that goes into planning a wedding so that I didn’t have any. I thank God for you mom and all of your service for the wedding.

I can honestly say that I cannot think of one single thing that I happened that I wish that I hadn’t done. That sounds crazy, but there isn’t anything.

• Again, this is something where I give my mom credit. If there was something that I probably should have been worried about (as in most brides usually worry about it) I didn’t because my mom took all of that. She had set up everything that needed to be set up, told people where they needed to be, asked people to help with decorations and gave instructions in how to do it, she was basically my wedding planner. So because of that I can honestly say that I can only think of one single moment when I felt nervous, not even worried, and that was as I had my arm linked in my Dad’s, and we were about to walk down the isle together, and I remember saying to him, “I’m kind of nervous. I don’t know why.” And him comforting me in the fatherly way that he has my whole life. “It will all be fine.”

My very best hindsight advice is like most, it goes by super fast. Enjoy every single moment. Even the moments that seem dull, enjoy them. Also don’t make it about yourself, marriage is a picture of a bigger thing of Christ and his body of believers. So when you make it about yourself, you are taking away from the bigger picture of something greater than yourself. Salvation through Jesus Christ is much better than me, and when you make Him your focus all other things come right where they need to be.

Team Wedding

• Venue & Rentals: YMCA of the Rockies
• Cake: Indulge Bakery
• Photographer: Meet The Burks
• Dress: Kirstin’s mothers
• Groomsmen & Groom: Mens Wearhouse
• Bridesmaid’s Dresses: David’s Bridal
• Bridemaid’s Shawls: Old Navy
• Flowers & Decorations: Bride & Friends
• Shoes: Converse