Fun & Spunky at Ridgewood

From the bride, Deborah:  Living in Albuquerque we were a little bored with the hotel ballroom weddings. We wanted to pick somewhere close enough for our Albuquerque friends to travel to but also enticing enough for friends/family who live further away (NY, Washington D.C., Seattle, Wisconsin, etc). Ryan proposed on the beach so we thought it would be nice to do the opposite (mountains) for our wedding. Since we had visited Durango before and enjoyed the nightlife, restaurants, rafting, fishing, and beautiful scenery we knew it would be perfect for our wedding.

Our style was a little shabby chic and rustic, but also a touch of elegance to keep it from being too trendy. We wanted a relaxed wedding day that was fun and spunky to match our personalities.

Our ceremony was intimate to us because we wrote, organized and planned the whole ceremony/vows ourselves. Our friend was our officiant, my sister-in-law sang and played an acoustic guitar song for us and my brother read our scripture.

We made all the lawn games: giant jenga, ring toss, and corn hole.

We picked our favorite cocktail drinks and offered those at the bar (keeping the drink options to a couple beers, a red & white wine, and 3 specialty drinks made it so we could provide drinks for our guests all night without breaking the bank).

 Our first dance was a swing dance to Hall & Oats, “You Make My Dreams Come True”.

Looking back, doing things on our own may not save you a ton of money and are a little stressful, but I think having some DIY touches make the day more meaningful and memorable. Being able to brag about the fact that we made most the decorations made it worth the time and stress.

My advice:
1.  Spend the extra money on a good photographer.
2. Something will go wrong and it will be out of your control, but don’t worry about it because it will make for good laughs later.
3. The day will fly by so make sure you take a couple minutes each hour to stop, take a big cleansing breath and enjoy the moment and your surroundings.

VENDORS:  Photography: Photo Divine  |  Venue: Ridgewood Event Center

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