Until "I Do": Goin' to the Chapel

From the moment I was engaged, I knew I could not get married in a "modern church." I have no problem with modern churches for services and bonding with other amazing people. But something about walking down the aisle on industrial carpeting between rows of folding chairs just did not hold the magic for me.

When Josh and I started our wedding planning journey, the plan was to get married in the beautiful Colorado mountains. That is why we initially chose a fall wedding. Just take a peek at the way our mountains look in October:

Can you blame us for wanting to be surrounded in this on our wedding day?

We began almost a six month endeavor of driving all over the state of Colorado, looking for that perfect venue. So many of them were gorgeous. But once we saw the pricetag, the beautiful mountain wedding did not look so perfect anymore. Aside from that, this beautiful lovely state has a way of making your truly a snotty mess whenever I am anywhere near a pine tree. How depressing is that? That was strike two: not wanting to feel like an allergic yucky mess on our wedding day. Strike three came when we realized how little lodging there was around any of these venues. We wanted our reception to be fun and obviously, fun involves alcohol and late hours. Neither of which are condusive to a 2 hour long drive home down curvy, dark mountain roads for our guests. Slowly, we were realizing the dream of a mountain wedding was really out of reach for us and our needs.

We moved along after a tiny little mourning period (ended by a sneezing attack which made me cranky enough to get over it.) Our next choice: a roaring 20s style downtown wedding. I mean, we do live in a beautiful and historic city. We are both natives to this town. And the nightlife here is surprisingly glam. You know me by now, I was thinking of the photos we could click with this as our background:

There was a song when I was in high school that said,

"From up here the city lights burn, like a thousand miles of fire"

I love the thought of that. Gives me goosebumps.

The hinderance with a Downtown Denver wedding was similar to the mountain wedding: price. I could not believe that a hotel downtown could charge over $8,000 more than a hotel 10 miles down the road. I could not accept that. Yes, we want a dream wedding...but just the fact that we are marrying each other is going to make it the most perfect day imaginable. We did not (and do not) want to go into our married life upside down in debt because of one day of our lives. We moved on.

I swear I spent what felt like eight billion hours online looking up small chapels in the Denver area. Something classic, with amazing architecture and not to many stringent rules (no music, strict pre cana classes since I am not Catholic, etc.) I drove to them alone. I drove to them with my mom. Josh and I drove to them. Each time, something was just not right. I had never dreamed that finding a church to get married in would be the hardest part. I honestly do not remember how I stumbled upon our wedding chapel, but I am so glad I did.

I do not lie when I say it is tiny. It holds about 115 people. We are trying to squish in about that many. Our guest list fell from 175 to 110. We have made sacrifices. The funniest part is, although Josh had seen photos of it, I actually put down our deposit on the chapel before he had even been there. He was convinced by photos that it was perfect and the price was right. And there were a handful of easy to follow rules. I booked it. It is in the center of the University of Denver campus and it is a Colorado Historic Landmark. The style of it is amazing. Red brick, high vaulted ceiling, stained glass, wood pews. Perfect. The other day, Josh and I finally ventured to the chapel together. He was amazed how small it really was, but said it was gorgeous. And the campus surrounding it is so beautiful too....full of trees that will be vibrant fall colors in October, with the mountains as a backdrop. I couldnt think of anything more beautiful.

Standing inside the chapel with my fiance, I was so giddy at the though of being back in about four months to do it for real. There was a certain energy surrounding us in there, we were both all smiles knowing that we were standing in the place where we would finally marry each other. Here are some photos of our day: