Weddings in the Canadian Rockies

Wedding Planning Directories:
Alberta Rockies Wedding services | BC Rockies Wedding services

Bride "Celebrating" The Rockies

Of all the possible locations to hold a wedding, the sheer beauty of the Canadian Rockies would be hard to beat. But despite the raw and unsullied landscape, the Canadian Rockies region has all the facilities needed to make it the perfect place to exchange marriage vows. It is this combination of natural splendour and state of the art facilities that make the Rockies unique, and much sought after as a wedding location. The infrastructure of the Canadian Rockies is excellent with modern year-round highways making accessibility easy. The international airport at Calgary, Alberta is only a couple of hours driving time away.

The choices available for a Canadian Rockies wedding can be overwhelming. Locations can include castle-like resort hotels, timber lodges, traditional churches and quaint prairie chapels. For lovers of the outdoors, the top of a mountain or ski hill, aboard a ski lift or gondola, or a flower-filled country park are just a few of the possibilities.

	Bride on a Hummer

Getting to the wedding can be half the fun. For some a flight in a helicopter to a mountain peak, or in a floatplane to a glacier-carved lake, followed by a quiet but spectacular ceremony with the full panorama of the Rockies as a backdrop, is a dream come true. For others a rickshaw, a vintage Rolls Royce or Bentley, horse-drawn carriage, dogsleigh or even a Hummer can be the vehicle of choice to convey the happy couple to their ceremony.

Winter Wedding in the Rockies

To coin a cliché, the Canadian Rockies really do have to be seen to be believed. While the world has many beautiful mountain ranges, none seem to have the clarity, purity and sense of openness that the Canadian Rockies do. Whatever time of year you choose to have your wedding - one thing is guaranteed - the scenery will be marvellous. And what a backdrop for those wedding pictures. The wedding photographers in the Canadian Rockies are experts at photographing the mountains, and showing them to their greatest advantage. Sometimes, friends and relatives back home fail to understand quite why a couple would choose to have their wedding miles away from their home and loved ones. However, these same friends and relatives totally understand the couple's decision when, upon seeing the photographs, they instantly notice the spectacular surroundings the couple chose to get married in.

The wedding ceremony can be as simple or as elaborate as desired. In Canada, marriage commissioners, or whoever performs the marriage, can help decide the order of the ceremony and the vows to be exchanged. There are some excellent marriage commissioners in the Canadian Rockies. Some of them have incredible personalities that add to the joy and memory of the ceremony. Many of them are used to marrying couples in some very unique locations. A lot of clergy will also perform non-denominational services outside the jurisdiction of their own faith. If a religious ceremony is required, with Canada?s multicultural identity it is relatively easy to find somebody to administer the appropriate wedding vows. There are churches of many denominations in the Rockies, and other facilities are only too happy to adapt a room to suit religious requirements as appropriate.

	After a Chapel Wedding

The beauty of a Canadian Rockies wedding, and the thing that seems to impress couples most, is the simplicity and ease of it all. For those who really want a carefree wedding - one call to a wedding planner and everything will be arranged without the couple having to worry about all the details and fine-tuning. Venue, license, transportation, flowers, marriage commissioner, reception - even witnesses can all be taken care of by a wedding planner.

One the other hand, some people prefer to plan each aspect of their wedding separately, and receive a great deal of pleasure from this. The Internet makes contacting florists, jewellers, caterers, etc. easy from anywhere in the world. This way you can keep track of each element in the total picture, and keep up with the various costs.

The businesses in the Canadian Rockies that help people with long distance wedding arrangements are used to helping people from afar. They know that people making wedding arrangements from a distance rely on their being dependable. They will gladly refer you to other wedding businesses that may be able to help you. Sometimes if they are already booked up for your chosen day, they will even refer you to somebody who is a competitor in their own field.

Unlike many jurisdictions, in the Canadian provinces of Alberta or British Columbia, no time-consuming residency requirements or blood tests are required. A passport or other official photo ID and birth certificate, and divorce papers or death certificate (when one or both of the parties has been previously married), are all that is required.

The benefit of all this is that the wedding is an enjoyable experience for everyone concerned. Sadly with some weddings, by the time the event takes place the bride and groom are, more often than not, 'burned out' by the stress of making all the arrangements and having to deal with so many variables and different people. Hearing so many different opinions - usually uninvited - as to how it ?should? be done can be very taxing. A wedding in the Canadian Rockies that is arranged using the services of local wedding specialists assures that the most important element of the wedding - the couple themselves - arrive for their ceremony happy and relaxed. After the festivities are over, the newly-weds can enjoy their honeymoon already 'wound down.'

"Something Old, Something New"

The Canadian Rockies offers so many advantages for a wedding. The scenery and the available facilities combine to make for truly magnificent ceremonies. More importantly perhaps, it can all be achieved with so little stress and anxiety, a beautiful Canadian Rockies wedding can be truly simple to arrange. Any marriage should have a great wedding to start things off on the right track; the Canadian Rocky Mountains is the perfect location to make this happen.

All photos courtesy Malcolm Carmichael - Peak Photography