Fort Private Residence Wedding in Aspen, COWedding Details:

How can the wedding not be good when you start with a week of smoking meat? Beau and Shayne . . . Yes we are starting your wedding blog talking about meat.  It was that good.  Probably anything put in a smoker for a week would be delicious.  Well upon thinking on that maybe not the cupcakes.  Whoever you knew that made them did a rather awesome job on them but they likely would not have survived it.  Getting back on subject . . . We believe you should make a wedding day reflect the things you love.  When couples contact us about photographing their wedding we ask for a bunch of info.  We love it when we get it and it is always fun to look back on after the wedding.  For them their passions were self described as falling in love camping, fishing, and hiking with an adoration for the outdoors and the mountains.  The week of the wedding was camping out drinking light beer.  There was some trout fishing on the wedding day and while nothing too crazy we did have some minor hiking around the mountain property.  The only things really missing were the dogs Bella and Kilo.

Everything was kept simple, fun, and personal.  One thing we love about photos is that we capture the minor details of things.  Everything from the gold painted leaves the flower girl dropped, the horse saddle high chairs, or the moments like when Shayne had this one tear roll down her cheek in the first dance with her dad.  She tried to smile through it but with a high resolution camera we saw it.  We are not sure if the wedding dress was uncomfortable but mid way through the reception there was a wardrobe change to a lighter and cooler white dress.  There was light beer, sangria, margaritas and some games to compliment the dance floor moves.  If there was one thing that did not work out it was the water balloon with the garter wrapped around it.  We love the idea but think you would need a more breakable balloon and some tape to hold the garter on it.

Fort Review:

Who would not want to do their wedding in a literal fort?  This is not a normal wedding venue rental but rather a private residence you can rent.  As of 2020 it was up for sale for 6.5 million.  It is 8 miles outside of the town of Aspen and on a 8 acre property.  There are multiple cabins, a gazebo off the pond that is stocked with large trout, a hot tub, and likely the most unique feature – tall fort walls surrounding you.  Well it is more on 3 sides as the 4th is missing and we are not sure where it went.  They had a wedding party staying there and maybe some others it seems.  The indoor spaces are small and highly custom in the log cabin style build.  Cell reception is non existent.  The ceremony was around back overlooking the pond and the reception inside the fort.  We love the unique nature of these kind of weddings where you use private property and do a little setup on your own.  The perk is you can save a lot on the venue, save on the food and alcohol, and do things more custom.  The downside is you will need to do a little more work coordinating to make things happen.  If you like to make decisions then this will not be a downside but rather a joy.  Provided you are okay without having a roof over your head incase of an afternoon shower the only limitation is you need to arrange some shuttles in from Aspen due to limited parking.  It seems you could fit about 12-15 vehicles in there and maybe another 5-6 if you had some higher clearance SUV.  They used CME to overcome this limitation.

If you are thinking of doing the private property / family home kind of wedding here are the other backyard weddings on the blog.