A Creative Mountain Wedding in Salida, Colorado
From the bride, Samantha:
We just wanted to make our wedding personalized to our style—rustic, classy, not too fancy but still nice. A day for everyone to have a great time and all of our fabulous friends and family to meet, and it turned out to be just that!
A lot of our wedding was DIY. As a graphic designer and artist at heart (with a wedding on a budget), I had fun planning a lot of little personal touches and completely appreciated all of my family and friends help…burlap/ribbon wrapped mason jars with baby’s breath, painted wooden signs, old window frame with photos of us hung by burlap, some photos of our dogs in ties , hand-cut flowers, designed our own wedding programs with a ‘how well do you know…’ quiz on the back, made a bean bag toss set (pretty easy actually!) for the reception, log cut centerpieces. It meant more that people we cared about got to help create the day.
Our ceremony was held in a meadow near the river surrounded by blooming trees. We had a great view of the mountains and could hear the river flowing in the background. 
My advice:
1. Utilize anyone’s help who asks you or hire a planner! I don’t have any family/close friends near so planning an event like this was a monstrosity with details down to the minute.
2. Day of: Enjoy EVERY moment, try not to stress. I consciously reminded myself of this and it was so worth it.
3. Even if you have a friend videotape your ceremony, I highly recommend getting it on tape somehow. Someone gave me the same advice because you just don’t remember very much of the ceremony because of everything that’s going on.
4. And take as many photos beforehand as possible so you can relax after the ceremony. I just wanted to be done with the crazy schedule and enjoy everyone’s company.
Samantha’s RECOMMENDED VENDORS
Photographer: Autumn Twilight Photography. Andrea was nothing short of amazing throughout the entire experience. We got to know each other a little better during our engagement session, so she was familiar with what we were after for the big day. Organized, on-time, responsive, professional, so sweet! Highly recommended! She was the vendor who, by far, made my life the easiest…she would follow up and verify times, details, etc. so I never had to check with her first.
Ceremony: Mt. Princeton Hot Springs. Zelma, their event coordinator, was very sweet and helpful with any questions.
Reception: Salida SteamPlant Event Center. I loved this venue right away. It is a renovated brick building with lots of character and the patio hugs the Arkansas River. There is room for a stage, an upstairs gallery, and plenty of space for our 100 person wedding.
Cupcakes: Sweetie’s Bakery. Sarah went out of her way on a busy weekend to make a variety of delicious and beautiful cupcakes for us!
Caterer: Wallbanger’s. Greg made us a delicious BBQ feast and took care of details so we didn’t have to worry about it. Laid-back and really helpful.
Hair Stylist: Flaunt. Kayla was so much fun, very bubbly and sweet. And could get creative with everyone’s hair on the fly. My curls were still bouncing into the late night.