Lane

You need Adobe Flash Player to view this content. Get Adobe Flash player

Alicia Carr + Ian Troxell

— Love in the Country

Date

10 April 2009

Guests

60 people

Photographer

Tec Petaja

Add Cancel
Alicia Carr + Ian Troxell
Alicia Carr + Ian Troxell

WHERE:Devil's Thumb Ranch outside of Winter Park, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. The Ranch sits on the Continental Divide and is near the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. It's a 5,000-acre, eco-friendly, sustainable ranch. We had our ceremony in a small, mostly-glass barn (as opposed to in the meadow, because of rain) and our reception in a restored barn.

THEME:We didn't have a theme in mind when we initially started planning. But after visiting the ranch, with its numerous horses, I had my husband draw a horse for our invitations (he's an artist). I adored the image so much that a horse theme grew out of it. We turned the image into a stamp and used it on our out-of-town bags, as the image for our head table (as opposed to numbers) and on our cards to our wedding party. I found a seller on etsy.com who had images of similarly-illustrated horses. She was able to use these for our other table images. We used horse shoes for displaying our place cards, I bought vintage horse postcards from ebay in lieu of a guestbook. I didn't want to go overboard with lassos or ribbons or anything too equestrian, but it felt natural to incorporate the horses since they are the main focus of the ranch--and they are such beautiful animals.

GUESTS:We had 60 guests. Because it was a destination wedding, many of our 145-person guest list couldn't make it (it was pretty much at the exact same time as the start of the recession). To be honest, 60 people was perfect! I got to make less out-of-town bags, so I could focus on the quality, not the quantity. Also, we had a food & beverage minimum we had to meet at our venue. With 145 guests, we had to order only the bottom-level items (as we didn't want to go much over the minimum). But with 60 people, we had a hard time getting to the minimum so we got to upgrade all of our food and alcohol to top shelf stuff. The Petron margaritas certainly wouldn't have happened if more guests had marked "yes" on their RSVP. I loved giving the guests who did come the royal treatment in terms of food and beverages. And, they got a late night snack of sliders and onion rings after dancing all night.

DRESS:My dress was Juliana by Christos. I bought her at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. I knew when I saw her that she was the one and putting her on for the first time just verified that feeling. I felt like a complete princess in all that tulle. Sigh. She was perfect. I added a J. Crew belt to the dress for the reception and for pictures. I came across it on their website and, because it was in our colors, I knew it would fit in somehow. And it did.

 

BRIDESMAIDS:My bridesmaids wore J. Crew dresses. I gave them two complementary colors in the silk chiffon fabric and told them they could wear any style in that fabric in one of those two colors. I had two maids-of-honor and they picked the same color while the three bridesmaids all chose the other color. This wasn't the original plan, though. Originally, I had told the girls they could buy J. Crew (in those colors, fabrics) or have a custom dress made by Sarah Seven (http://www.sarahseven.com/). Three of the girls got Sarah Seven dresses but when they came in (late, by the way, they arrived ONE week before the wedding!), they didn't fit right and the styles were wrong. So, we ditched that plan and just all ordered from J. Crew. Luckily, J. Crew is extremely easy to work with and fast.

GROOMSMEN:The guys also wore J. Crew. They wore the Aldridge suit with any white shirt and black shoes and belt. We gifted them Brooks Brothers black ties that they wore that day as well. My favorite part about the guys was their boutonnieres. They were wheat with chamomile and tiny little cream colored ribbons. My florist nailed these.

HAIR:My hair was a side chignon with a tiny little braid lassoed into the bun. I wanted something loose, romantic, and natural looking. That's exactly what my stylist did. I used Candace Post from Hot Headz Salon in Denver, CO. My hair flowers were custom designed for me by Muscari Designs. They were made of tulle and pearls. I'm not sure she's still in business but here's her website: http://www.muscaridesigns.com/.  

MAKEUP:I looooooved my make-up. It was done by Liz Boyle, she's the regional manager for Bobbi Brown in the Denver and Colorado Springs area. I wanted something natural with that blushing bride look with a little bit of dewiness. Bobbi Brown is big into blush and lip gloss and so am I, so I felt like it was a perfect match.

RINGS:I bought my ring at an estate jeweler in Los Angeles called Wanna Buy a Watch? (http://www.wannabuyawatch.com/). It's platinum and diamond and has an inscription on it from 1907. It says: "B.R.P. to W.T. 6-5-07." The jeweler confirmed that this was 1907 and not 2007. Not only is buying estate jewelry more affordable, but I love the fact that my ring has a bit of history to it (hopefully, a good one). Plus, it matched perfectly with my engagement band which is a family heirloom. My husband, Ian's, ring we purchased online from iweddingband.com. All he wanted was a plain gold band. I read tons of reviews about the website and all of them were glowing. I surprised him with an inscription that says: "On this harvest moon. 10.04.09" We got married on the night of the Harvest Moon. We had no idea that this would occur until after we'd booked our date. Also, coincidentally, before finding out that it was the night of the harvest moon, we picked Neil Young's "Harvest Moon" as our first dance song. It was all so serendipitous, I wanted to chisel that magic into history on his ring. We're considering celebrating our anniversaries on the Harvest Moon that falls around our date, as opposed to on our actual date. It was more significant to us than the date was.

STATIONERY/INVITATIONS:Our invitations were gocco'd by Sarah Parrot of Parrot Design Studio.  I found her on etsy and adore her stationary--it's clean, simple, and often incorporates nature, flora, and fauna. We're big into the outdoors, so this appealed to us. We used Ian's horse sketch as well as a sketch he did of a barn and had them printed on Crane Lettra paper which is meant for letterpress but looked great. Ian also created a custom map and we had Sarah gocco it onto handkerchiefs. We tied them up with raffia to give them that "right off the prairie" look and feel. Our other stationary (table cards and place cards) were done by Seasonal Delights on Etsy.com. She can be reached through her etsy page: http://www.etsy.com/shop/seasonaldelights.

FLOWERS:  I wanted my flowers to feel feminine with ruffle and soft, romantic colors. So, we worked in peaches, golds, creams, and whites. We used Juliet garden roses, dahlias, chamomile, peach stock, ranunculus, and candor pompom mums. I collected jars and vintage glass from garage sales and thrift stores throughout the year before my wedding and used them as vases for our centerpieces. We wrapped raffia around the jars to give them interesting detail.

CEREMONY DETAILS:We really didn't accessorize the ceremony at all in terms of decor. We wanted the focus to be on our words--we wrote the whole ceremony--and on the music that we incorporated into the ceremony. My grandmother is a musical actress--she was the singing voice for Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, Debra Kerr in The King and I and she was in the Sound of Music. There was nothing more I wanted than to have her sing for us at our wedding. So she serenaded everyone with Ave Maria. My aunt (her daughter) is also a wonderful singer so we had her sing (while our friend Justin Bobb played guitar) Heavenly Day by Patty Griffin.

RECEPTION DETAILS:Beyond the horseshoes and postcards (which were put into a birdcage once they were signed), we also had a photo booth and a clothesline of photographs. The photo booth was fit with cowboy hats and bandanas so our guests could get playful in front of the camera. No one manned the booth, we just set up an SLR on a tripod, pre-set the mode and set a timer so people could go from the camera to the backdrop in time. Those photos are some of my favorites. Our clothesline of photographs was unlike any I've seen. Usually couple showcase images of their relationship throughout the years. We want to showcase us with our guests throughout the years so they could see what part of history they had in our lives. It was a fun addition and I loved going through old pictures to put it together. Our table cards were held up by Pottery Barn place card holders and my dad cut inch-thick wood stumps to place them on from a tree in his backyard in California.

CAKE:We decided not to have cake. We're both not big cake people. Instead, we had a pie bar with a number of organic, all-natural fruit and sweet pies. This was one of my favorite details. I collected vintage pie/cake stands over the year (like the jars) and then had our calligrapher, Pretty Pen Jen (http://www.prettypenjen.com/index2.php) write signs for each of the flavors. We had a sign that said: "Love is Sweet! Try as many flavors as you like!". We had them cut into tiny pieces so people could try all of the different flavors. I got the little heart stands for the pie labels from a UK ebay store called Bliss & Bloom.

ENTERTAINMENT:We hired a bluegrass band to play our ceremony and our reception. They were called Elephant Revival and are a local Colorado band. At first, I was worried because our guests were coming from NY and LA. Would they enjoy bluegrass music? Apparently, yes. Everyone danced the entire time and had a blast. The band learned our first dance song (Neil Young's Harvest Moon) and they also learned a song for me for my walk down the aisle. I heard this instrumental song in a surf video called Shelter that always just spoke to me and hearing it live from the bluegrass band was incredible.

FOOD & DRINKS:Our buffet-style dinner was a casual menu: BBQ. We had ribs, fennel-crusted shoulder of pork, black bean burgers with a chipotle aioli. Corn bread, salad, rosemary potatoes, tomato and mozzarella salad, and coleslaw. For drinks, we served Petron margaritas, Wooly Booger beer (which is local to the ranch's area), a lighter wheat beer (also local), and a couple of wines. The sauvignon blanc was from New Zealand which we soon learned was an awesome choice. Our honeymoon was in New Zealand and sauvignon blanc is their staple (as you probably know).

LITTLE EXTRAS:We made out-of-town bags in muslin bags with stamps from Hobby Lobby on them. They contained taffy, Chapstick, Emergen-C, and homemade granola made by one of my bridesmaids. We also included a little welcome note and a schedule of weekend events, which included a viewing of Wedding Crashers the night before the rehearsal dinner and a group hike, the day before the wedding.

BEST ADVICE FOR PLANNING A WEDDING/TO BRIDES: Don't try to fit into a trend. Just follow your own style intuition and go for what you like. That will actually make a more cohesive overall style than forcing a trend into your wedding will.


ALICIA'S CONTACTS:

Also in Real Weddings

Brooke & Kurt Gidley

Brooke & Kurt Gidley

— 03/02/2012

Vintage Inspired Wedding

Mandy Shadforth + Sam Williams

Mandy Shadforth + Sam Williams

— 22/12/2011

Bohemian Bali Wedding

View All

You need Adobe Flash Player to view this content. Get Adobe Flash player