Matthew & Eve's Estes Park, Colorado Wedding at Our Lady of The Mountains Catholic Church an
Matthew and Eve lucked out with perfect weather for their late September wedding day. What Eve didn't know was that she scheduled her wedding on one of
Estes Parks' busiest days of the year! ELK FEST!
September 29, 2018 Everything moved at a snail's pace in Estes that day.
Matthew and Eve started their day in separate hotel rooms at the Stanley. Eve was busy doing her makeup when I arrived.
This girl can do makeup! She studied Youtube to find the best waterproof makeup tutorials!
Eve's mom, Amy, helped her into her dress, which had lots of buttons!
I love the strong light of this image as Eve held her dress tight to her body.
Hands can tell so much, can't they?
Matthew got ready in his parents room down the hall from Eve.
After everyone was ready, we headed across the street to
Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church. This church is beautiful inside and out!
This picture will never get old to me -- The first time a husband gets to see his bride.
Family and Friends helped pray over Matthew and Eve.
They presented flowers to Mary.
This stained glass window is so beautiful with lots of blues and greens.
We had grand plans of going into Rocky Mountain National Park for their wedding portraits. But Elk Fest had different plans.
There was a very, very long wait to get into the park. I knew of another location that provided great views for our midday couples portraits. It also has great view of the Stanley and Twin Owls in the background.
Matthew was excited when we arrived at the top of the hill. Perfect view of Longs Peak off in the distance. Matthew summited Longs Peak last year. This is absolutely on my bucket list.
After we spent time outside on the front lawn and on the stairs, we headed inside the Stanley.
I knew that I wanted pictures of them on the grand staircase. I also knew that The Stanley Hotel would be holding back-to-back-to-back tours that day.
​The stairs are a very popular spot in the hotel for photographers and tourists alike. I am glad that we had some nice people that gave us time alone on the staircase.
I love the nostalgic feel The Stanley Hotel has.
Their wedding reception was in the Music Hall at the Stanley. Perfect for a smaller more intimate wedding.
Eve chose Mason jars with a collection of roses and little pink flowers in them for her centerpieces.
Matthew's sister welcomed guests and toasted the happy couple.
They had Nothing Bundt Cakes for their wedding cake.
If you haven't had these, hop to it.
They have every flavor under the sun.
Their main wedding cake was lemon. It was delicious!
Eve's grandma was behind me most of the day with her cell phone. I snapped a quick one of her giggling. I asked her if she got the shot because I ran out of film. ;)
As Matthew and Eve's reception was coming to an end, I asked them if they wanted to try for Rocky Mountain National Park one more time at sunset., even though my contracted time was up. Their reception ended at 6 and that gave us barely enough time to head back to the park. The sun was disappearing fast, so we pulled over into a pull off and ran to the middle of a field.
We could hear a huge herd of elk bugling off in the distance. This will by far go down as one of the most memorable weddings I have photographed. It was a long day filled with a million tourists.
But we took everything with a grain of salt and rolled with it.
