Why did you pick the venue and what did you love about it?

We wanted to focus on having our wedding be about our friends and family, and, mostly, we wanted to create a community experience over a few days. We also wanted it to be pretty intimate so we knew it needed to be in a place where we could all be close and ultimately living together, but also have privacy. We had not heard of The Creek Ranch before the “dark web” of internet venue researching, but when we landed on the ranch and saw it was voted as the #1 hotel in the world in 2014 by Conde Nast, we knew it was our spot. We had always toyed with the idea of a mountain wedding since I grew up skiing out West and Bryan’s obsession with fly fishing so it was the easiest decision for us to choose them.

Simply put, the resort was immeasurably outstanding in every respect. They greeted us by name when we drove up for the first time for our site visit like they had known us for years. They did all of the little (and big) things right. For instance, we both have quite an affinity for hot sauce, so after our first request for Tabasco with our meal, there was 4 different sauces to choose from at our table for the rest of the weekend. The service was simply impeccable not to mention it is located on 30,000 acres of completely wild Montana country. They not only provided a sense of community where our closest friends and family could be together, but they were also so accommodating, luxurious and hospitable. I guess you could call it a premier “glamping” ranch experience but I don’t know of any “glamping” with individual saunas, steam rooms and turn down service!

Did you work with a wedding planner or day-of coordinator?

We worked with the onsite events manager Catherine Reed from the Triple Creek Ranch. She was exceptional in all things from the weekend itinerary to the day of wedding events. Her motto was “tell me what I can’t do for you.” She is, no joke, a living doppelganger of Melissa McCarthy with all the sass, charisma and red hair to boot. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else in my corner during my wedding weekend then her as she executed the weekend effortlessly (the 100 staff walkie-talkies with constant chatter sure helped I am sure).

What was the planning process like?

It was so easy for us! Bryan and I loved every moment of it. We did a 1.5 year long engagement and really enjoyed all aspects of the planning process. Since we were having the wedding in a remote area (1 hour south of Missoula, MT), Triple Creek really had most of the bases covered. We didn’t need a caterer (they have a 24 person team headed by a chef from the French Culinary Institute and a James Beard Foundation Dinner winner), we didn’t need a lot of flowers (focused on what was already outside), we didn’t need to bring in any activities (on-site horse rides, fly fishing, archery, sapphire panning, and much more were already apart of their program) and our photographer was Bryan’s roommate from USC (Harpers Bazaar Top 100 Photographers Worldwide, Braedon Flynn). All we had to do was pick which local bluegrass bands we wanted and how we were going to convince the ranch to let us have a surprise fireworks show at the rehearsal night (which we somehow did and it was a total blast)!

For us this gave us an opportunity to focus on the little meaningful details which Bryan and I love to put our time into. For instance we wrote a “thank you manifesto” for every single guest which they all got on arrival telling each of them why we were thankful for there friendship. This was our way of introducing everyone to each other which we think really set the intention for the weekend.

Did you tackle any DIY projects? If so, what were they?

We incorporated our wedding logo to reflect the ranches cattle brand. We really wanted to be as authentic as possible, so we hand cut Pine springs while back home over the holidays and tied them to our custom wood veneer invitations. My intention was to make sure the invites smelled like pine when they arrived to our guests!

Did you have a signature cocktail?

“The Minx”- (Bryan’s nickname for me with his friends) – Sangria

“The Asian Buttcheek” – (This was Bryans drink, nodding to his Asian heritage but more importantly because we thought it’d be funny to hear people ordering it)– Japanese Highball (block ice, whiskey, soda water)

Tell us about the food you served!

Well it is honestly hard to describe just one since each of our three main events had such awesome menus. We had our Thursday welcome dinner with full Mexican food spread including carne asada and home made tortillas with a variety of house-made salsa from the chef. Friday we had a lunch in their organic orchard the ranch sources their food from. We had hayride entrances for the guests and horse rides into the hills, followed by a rehearsal dinner that was focused around a whole hog on a spit BBQ, country sides, strawberry shortcake and a chocolate chip and vanilla ice cream dessert which was cooked in cast irons over the fire pits. For our wedding reception dinner, we focused on Montana game meat including pheasant, bison, wild trout and local vegetables.