Scott and Lindsay wed this past Christmas at the Sun Valley Lodge. The whole affair looked so cozy and fun, I just had to share. Lindsay asked her bridesmaids to choose any style dress they’d like for the wedding. I love idea of making your bridesmaids feel as comfortable as possible. That way they all shine and feel beautiful on your big day! What a cool couple, I hope you enjoy their story.
Scott and Lindsay Wilcox
Sun Valley, Idaho – December 12, 2010
Location: Sun Valley Resort, Idaho
Reveal: Sun Valley Club
Ceremony: Lodge Sun Room
Reception: Lodge Dining Room
Welcome
Party: Roosevelt Grille
Guest weekend activities: Ice skating, snowboarding, skiing, inner tubing, bowling
WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
Bothell (Seattle area), Washington
OCCUPATIONS?
Scott-Chrysler Technician
Lindsay-PT Student, FT Loyalty & Advertising Assistant for a local grocery store
HOW YOU MET
Scott was working for Lindsay’s dad at a local Dodge dealership. During early winter of 2008, Lindsay needed a ride up to the mountain. Len (Lindsay’s dad) “made” Scott give Lindsay a ride up there. We consider that day our first date on the mountain. We started officially dating soon after. The rest of the season, we kept riding together and got to know each other while participating in a sport we both loved.
HOW DID YOU GET ENGAGED?
Our engagement is a funny story. I was doing homework one night, and Scott kept running back into our bedroom. He was acting funny, but I was preoccupied so didn’t think too much of it. Turns out, he was calling my dad to ask his permission to marry me. He also called his mom and dad to let them know the news. When he talked to my dad, he made it perfectly clear that he was going to think of something amazing and it wouldn’t be for awhile. Well, he walked straight out of the bedroom over to where I was doing my school work, got down on his knee and said the most heartfelt proclamation of love I have ever heard out of his mouth. And he asked me to marry him. My response was a huge, bawling hug. I barely managed to choke out yes. When I called my dad, he thought it was hilarious since MINUTES before he had just talked to Scott about how he was planning on waiting to plan a special moment. Once Scott made up his mind, “he didn’t want to wait anymore.”
NUMBER OF GUESTS
40
WEDDING BUDGET
We didn’t really have a “budget” so to say, but we stayed around $15,000 ish.
WEDDING THEME
Snow!
CULTURAL TRADITIONS
Not really cultural but–Lindsay was raised Catholic and Scott Buddhist. Since Lindsay’s dad preformed the wedding, he was able to incorporate both religions into the ceremony. There was a reading done by Scott’s dad that incorporated the Buddhist philosophy and a traditional Catholic reading out of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian’s (Love is patient, Love is kind).
SONG THAT YOU WALKED DOWN THE AISLE TO & FIRST DANCE
Walked down the aisle to Killswitch Engage-Without a Name; first dance to John Mayer-Gravity. We had a hard time picking a first dance song to. We listen to a wide range of hard rock music, so finding a song that felt like a reflection of our taste of music proved to be difficult. Our amazing friend who was in charge of the music put together a couple playlists for us to choose between. When we were driving over from Seattle to Sun Valley for the wedding, we started listening to the playlists. We both fell in love with “Gravity.”
For the music I walked down the aisle to, that was another huge challenge. Everyone walks down to Canon in D, and our wedding was in no way traditional. We were able to find a prelude from a heavy rock band that Scott and I both adore. The music “sounded” traditional, but was by one of our favorite artists. The bridal party processional was Plain White T’s-1, 2, 3, 4 and the recessional was Rise Against-Swing Life Away.
GUEST FAVORS
For our guest favors, we individually filled glass ornaments with different small candies including M&M’s, Skittles, Reese’s M&M’s, Almond Joy M&M’s.
HOW DID THE NIGHT END?
The night ended with the bride doing a keg stand, the stepmom of the bride jumping into The Lodge pool in her dress, and 2 of the bridesmaids following in their skivvies!
WHERE WAS YOUR HONEYMOON?
For our honeymoon, we stayed at a condo in Sun Valley and went riding up at Bald Mountain. On our way back to Seattle, we took a detour up to Whitefish/Big Mountain are of Montana to spend some time with the Groom’s brother and his family.
WHAT MADE YOUR WEDDING SO SPECIAL?
Our wedding was so special because it was a direct reflection of our tastes and personalities. The traditional aspects of wedding that we didn’t like (bouquet toss, elaborate flowers, garter toss, traditional boring music, etc.) we didn’t include. We also did some unconventional things that most weddings don’t include. One of our favorite parts of our wedding ceremony was our introduction of each bridal party member and our vows. The group of friends and family surrounding us were so important; we wanted to make sure their importance was recognized. We also each wrote our own vows as we wanted them to be personal. Both included snowboarding in them
We also included completely untraditional music. Some band examples: Atreyu, Rise Against, Propaghandi, NOFX, Trivium, Breaking Benjamin.
FAVORITE DETAIL
Our favorite detail was our guestbook. We are huge snowboarders and that passion showed throughout our wedding from our location choice, to the week we spent with our guests enjoying the mountain. Len (bride’s dad) had a great idea of using a white snowboard and sharpies as our guestbook. We had a heck of a time finding a blank snowboard so we started asking around to local reps if they had any blank or kill boards. We sent a kick e-mail off to Burton not expecting a response since it was such a large corporate company. To our pleasant surprise, one day out of nowhere a blank snowboard showed up on our doorstep with an extremely kind vintage postcard included from one of Burton’s original team members (John Gerndt, AKA " JG "). We were completely blown away and caught off guard. It worked perfect! We plan on hanging the snowboard in a shadow box in our future bonus room.
COLOR PALETTE
Dark purple and silver.
HOW DID YOU DECIDE YOUR MENU?
We chose a menu that would satisfy different tastes as well as not competing with our rehearsal/welcome party. The night before our wedding we held a 3 course dinner at the Roosevelt Grille that all of our guests were invited to. The next night at the Lodge, we choose to have an Italian feast. We chose both of the menus that we had because we had a large array of dietary needs from Gluten-Free to Vegan and both establishments and menus were able to feed all of our guests.
D.I.Y PROJECTS
Favors, centerpieces, cupcake stand, décor, paper products
BIGGEST CHALLENGE
The biggest challenge was traveling with all the wedding items. The planning was amazingly easy with the distance because of the fantastic wedding planner at The Lodge-Fanny Horn.
ANYTHING NON-TRADITIONAL INCORPORATED
A lot of our wedding was non-traditional. Our original plan was to get married on our snowboards directly on the ski slope. We had my dad ordained specifically for that reason because we wanted a personal wedding and needed someone that could ride. We ended up changing to getting married where we were having our ceremony so that everyone who traveled to our wedding (all but 3 of our guests were from out of town) was able to enjoy our ceremony.
TIPS FOR SOMEONE PLANNING A SUN VALLEY WEDDING
My biggest tip for planning a Sun Valley wedding is to use the great resources right in town. We ran into so much talent located in a few mile radius of The Lodge that would have saved us some planning headaches with traveling in with so many items. All of the businesses and people we encountered while we were in town were amazing as well and eager to help in any way possible. We are also HUGE proponents of doing YOUR wedding YOUR way. We ran into some bumps along the way by trying to please everyone. In the end, we had to step back and remember that this was our day and a reflection of us. While we valued all the opinions around us, in the end we wanted to make the final decisions. No matter where you plan your wedding, I think the most important part is that it makes YOU (the bride and groom) proud to call it yours. And one piece of advice is to not sweat the small things. Looking back, choosing between ivory or white linens and whether you want roses or lilies SEEMS like a huge deal. But if you let the small decisions not amount up to anything significant, you will be able to step back and enjoy your day. One of the best decisions we made was to not care so much about the small stuff and remember at the end of the day, we were lucky to have found each other and couldn’t wait to celebrate our wedding day with family and friends. We were fortunate enough to have very few “problems” day of, and anything that did happen was sorted out so well and quickly that we were able to enjoy our day and not stress.
VENDOR LIST:
WEDDING PLANNER:
Fanny Horn, Sun Valley Lodge planned our entire wedding with us. Right at the end, Fanny left the company and we worked with Nicole who is their current planner. We cannot say enough nice things about our process with Fanny. Because of the late switch over with planners, we ran into some small hiccups with Nicole that were sorted out, just not necessarily in the best way possible.
FLOWERS:
Originally we had made silk flower bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids beforehand so that we didn’t have to deal with a florist. I HATE flowers. I didn’t want them anywhere near the décor at all and silk was a way to still carry something without killing flowers. Unfortunately, we forgot the bouquets at home. But, my step mom was able to go into town and have simple flowers done the day before the wedding. The bridesmaids each carried 1 white rose, and the bride carried 3 with a dark purple ribbon around the stems. The men in the bridal party all had a simple white boutonniere. No filler. No fern. They were simple and beautiful and made me realize it was nice that we forgot the silk ones at home. Here is a direct quote from my step mom about working with Ketchum Flower Company: “She was amazing!! I barely had to tell her what I wanted and she totally understood “elegant and simple”. The store is also a gift shop and the “florist part” isn’t even open on Sundays (the wedding was a Sunday), but she said it wasn’t a problem that it was all last minute and she was happy to do it. I was very happy and relieved when I found her.”
HAIR/MAKEUP:
Bride, Stepmom of the Bride, Mother of the Groom, Sister of the Groom: Amber Coats, Bellevue, Idaho
Bridesmaids: Cassie Carillo, Boise, Idaho
DRESS/SHOES:
Dress-David’s Bridal WG9828. The entire profile was restructured to have a fit and flare profile as well as a redesigned neckline.
Alterations: P.A. Jenn’s in Seattle, WA
Shoes: Bailey Button Dark Purple Uggs, Nordstrom
