#HappilyEverHolmes | Estes Park Elopement

It finally happened. All three Shelton sisters are married!

My middle sister, Grace, got married to her long-time beau this month near Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colorado. She will say she and Tom eloped, however there were eight of us in attendance so I qualify this as a teeny tiny wedding.

My sister is not your typical bride. If she had it her way originally, she and Tom would have been married at the courthouse last December when they got engaged. She didn’t want all the fluff and stress that comes with planning and hosting a wedding (minus the bachelorette party, which is a post coming soon!). And who can blame her? Weddings are exhausting – financially, mentally, and physically. At the end of the day, she just wanted to be married. Which is exactly my mantra for any wedding situation these days.

Tom was a bit more sentimental about experience. He conceded to Grace’s wishes for simplicity, but it was important to him to get married someplace special and include the immediate family – one request I can appreciate because I can’t imagine missing my sister’s wedding! So, that’s how the elopement became a mini-weekend in Colorado with both sets of parents and all the siblings (minus my brother-in-law, Jordan, who deployed in May with the US Army to Kuwait).

The great thing about this post is I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves, simply because they’re beautiful… and there’s just a not whole lot to explain. We came, we ate, we drank, and we watched the Mr. & Mrs. get married in front of a beautiful mountain backdrop. And that’s exactly what she wanted.

Wedding day consisted of brunch, and then splitting up to prep for the big day. The men played putt-putt golf and archery at YMCA of the Rockies where we all stayed in cabins, and the women did a little shopping before getting our hair done at Glow of Estes Park. I may have also forced everyone into The Christmas Shoppe against their will, but hey. It’s my thing. You always need a new ornament from every place you travel!

And by then, it was wedding time! Simple, right? Grace and Tom were married at Riversong Bed & Breakfast, under an arch by the river, with snow-covered mountains in the background. They took photos at Rocky Mountain National Park. And we celebrated with dinner at Cascades in the famously haunted Stanley Hotel, where they spent their first nights as Mr. & Mrs.

All very Grace & Tom. It was just perfectly them.

Here’s to the Holmes’! And my parents finally being done paying for weddings!