Portuguese Fairytale Wedding in the Aspen Rockies

You don’t need much to create a beautiful event when you have the Rocky Mountains of Aspen as your backdrop. But this destination wedding still goes above and beyond the call of duty. Thoughtful details and personal touches from the bride and groom’s own love story, one of traveling and romance, set the tone for this Portuguese fairytale wedding in the Aspen Rockies.

Kristi and James’ love of travel and engagement in Portugal set the theme of their Aspen destination wedding. There were so many details to capture and Laura Murray Photography expertly caught all the intimate impressions of this day.

Event planner, Amber, from Banks & Leaf helped this bride and groom weave their individual styles together, as well as incorporate those European details into their wedding day.

Invitations and paper goods from Jolie and Co added that Portuguese flair by mimicking ceramic tiles and using lots of blue tones.

Cori Cook floral designers brought all the fall feels to Aspen with their dusty rose and burgundy flower arrangements.

From the Event Planner, Banks & Leaf: The theme of travel was woven throughout the wedding with the invitations, escort cards, and welcome bag. During their ceremony, they filled a box with their wishes and dreams for each other. The box was handmade by a family friend and contains wine that they selected on their engagement trip to Portugal. On their 1 year anniversary, they will open, drink the wine, and read the previous year’s love letter. Then, they will add a new letter to each other to be read the following year. It will grow into an ever-expanding treasure.

They are incredibly kind and giving people. Throughout the entire weekend, they were constantly thinking of their loved one with thoughtful gestures (like personal birthday cakes as 2 of their guests that had birthdays that week) AND vendor team (she gifted her vendors jewelry from her mother’s wedding dress too!!! We couldn’t even believe it!). They are true gems!

From the Bride: We are so glad to have had Amber with Banks & Leaf plan our wedding because neither James nor I knew what we wanted it to look like. We knew we wanted it to be fun with a focus on good food and drinks, be outside but not rustic, and be incredibly meaningful and personal. We knew we would be asking our friends and family to travel from around the country, so we wanted somewhere in the mountains that had plenty to do and see. Aspen and the meadow at T Lazy 7 were the perfect choices for us. I am a details person and it was truly all of the special little details that made our wedding so memorable for us.

As we talked about our love of traveling the world and that we got engaged on a riverboat cruise on the Douro River in Portugal, Amber came up with the incredible design of having our events be themed around that love of traveling. We hosted both a rehearsal dinner and a welcome party because we wanted everyone we know and love to get to know each other – our marriage is about bringing our families together. I loved the variety of colors used throughout our events, they truly spoke to the uniqueness we wanted and the richness of beauty that tiles from Portugal and Italy give. Our rooster from the Portugal trip was at our head table and my something borrowed was a steer head that my grandmother often wore.

I knew I wanted to do something with my mom’s wedding dress and I knew I wanted it to be something different than adding some lace to a handkerchief. I met Ricki from Tricks and Ginger at a craft show and we knew we had to work together. Ricki took the beautiful lace pieces from my mom’s dress, then dyed and arranged them into incredible pieces of jewelry. I wore earrings at the rehearsal dinner and a necklace and hairpiece at the wedding. I also gifted pieces to my mom, bridesmaids, greeters, and some special vendors. I wanted them to have a piece of us to remember. My mom and I also made quilts to give to my bridesmaids to honor the friendship that they have given me over the years.

Even our food was purposeful and we loved working with Catering By Design. We told Danielle about our favorite restaurants and places we have traveled and she came up with a menu that used spices from all over the world and gave nods to our favorite places to eat. James even had his most favorite bread roll recreated. We introduced everyone to our favorite sparkling sweet red wine, Rosa Regale, and our favorite whiskey, Stranahan’s, was the biggest hit of the night.

It was important to James that we do a first look at the Maroon Bells. We were not able to make that happen, but we did get a chance to do a quick photo shoot there which was amazing. The decor at our rehearsal dinner was our biggest DIY project – we actually felled the aspen trees, cut them, sanded them, and turned them into beautiful centerpieces.

My dad had our song picked out the first time he ever heard it in 2006 and he would cry every time he heard it. It’s one of the things I love the most about my dad, he is a strong and vulnerable man. That’s how we chose every song or quote that we had at our wedding: if it made me cry we knew it was a good one. Our song, Making Memories of Us by Keith Urban, was so perfect for us and we worked for a year on the choreography.