Winter Stanley Hotel Wedding

Estes Park, Colorado

Miranda + Steve

The Stanley Hotel is a perfect venue for your wedding but having a winter wedding adds an entirely different feel and beauty.

This particular wedding felt COLD. Negative 8 degrees cold to be exact. When it gets that cold the air has this really crisp feeling. Thankfully it wasn't windy as that would have really made things tough. Miranda and Steve really wanted to go in to Rocky Mountain National Park for portraits. I am all game for it and wear appropriate clothes. All I really have to worry about is the camera shutter freezing or the batteries failing prematurely. Miranda and Steve had their own challenges. You can wear extra layers under a gorgeous poofy wedding dress and her shawl really helped cut the cold on her shoulders.

All in all it was worth it. They had a wonderful ceremony with Steve's sons and while the weather was cold, it was gorgeous with the freshly fallen snow and big fat flakes falling once we made it into the National Park.

They stayed at the presidential cottage which is right next to the main building. While the inside has been a bit modernized they have retained the original exterior. It originally was located lower on the property and used as a gatehouse decades ago. It was moved to it's current location and used as storage until being remodeled recently as a 4 bedroom space complete with kitchen.

The last photo in this blog is hilarious. Miranda's dress had lots of thule underneath which is rather normal but the ends were hemmed and this area seems to sift through the snow so she had lots of snow trapped around the base of her dress from all of our exploring in the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was really funny seeing the guys work so hard to get it out.