Pre-Wedding Parties

Bill and I headed up to the Northern Cascades on the Wednesday before the wedding.  We flew up to Omak which was the closest place to rent a car.  Driving from Vancouver takes about 9 hours to get to Mazama so we elected to fly as close to it as we could.  The Methow State and Twisp airports (which are the closest airports) don't have rentals available.  So we landed in Omak and rented a car from one of the car dealerships in town and drove the last hour and a half of our trip to the wedding location.

The first night was fairly low key.  Just Pete and Marian (Maddy's parents); Tom and Maddy; Zach, Tom's best man; Anna, Maddy's sister and maid of honor; and Bill and me.  We enjoyed an evening of conversation, dinner and playing games.

Thursday-Tom and Maddy had some activities planned with their wedding party.  Tom and Zach went hiking at Blue Lake.  Maddy and some of her bridesmaids tried to go to favorite swimming spot on the Methow River but the water was too low so they went wine tasting instead.

 Zach and Tom on their bachelor party hike.

I have never been hiking in that area but this gives you an idea of how beautiful it is there and why Tom and Maddy love it so much. That is a glacier at the other end of the lake.

 Still a little bit of snow still there.  But it was so hot that they jumped into that ice cold glacier fed lake to cool off.

After attempting a bachelorette party on the river, Tristen, Anika, Maddy and Anna did a little wine tasting at the Lost River Winery.

Thursday night was when things started hopping with more of the wedding party and family arriving.  Pete and Marian hosted a barbeque at their cabin that night.  Here are a few pictures from that night.

Before the guests started arriving, Tom and Zach tried to clean some old antique windows that we were going to be using for wedding decorations.  Such a gorgeous view from Pete and Marian's deck.

Tom and Maddy bought the entire wedding party t-shirts.  Bill and I were on Team Tom of course.  Here we are in our t-shirts.

 Tom and Zach in their t-shirts and enjoying some libations.

 Anna enjoying a little bit of dad time with Pete.

There were a few gifts that were presented to the bride and groom that night.  Some decorations for the wedding (and their home) were included.

 Chris arrived after he finished class.  It is a bit of a haul from Bellingham too.

 Some of the wedding party gathering at the cabin that night.

Friday was a busy day moving into the wedding venue site and getting everything setup for the wedding and rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

The weather was incredibly hot--104 degrees every day.  So we got a taste of it at the rehearsal to know what the wedding temperatures were going to be like.

This is the extent of rehearsal and rehearsal dinner pictures that I was able to take.  I was much too busy.  As much as we tried to make it easy, it still was a lot of work to feed the over 50 people that came to the rehearsal dinner. We got a bunch of pizzas and had a few salads and cookies and called it good.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it so that was really nice.

Because it was so hot, I was not feeling so great and feeling a little overwhelmed so I didn't make any speeches.  But Bill did a great job of welcoming all our guests and giving a very nice toast to the bride and groom.

 

After we left, the bridal party and the cousins went swimming on the Methow River until they lost light and headed back to Brown's Farm.

 The morning on the wedding, we got to see these turkeys next to the cabin we were staying in.

We all had been seeing a lot of deer along the road, jumping in front of our cars driving and walking through the wedding venue to try to get to the river but it was fun to see these guys too.

The morning of the wedding we went into town to meet up with all our family and friends that had come to the wedding.  Jeff, Sherrill and Rhys came up.  They had quite the trip.  They drove to Chicago, took the train from Chicago to Denver, rented a car in Denver to take Graham to the Air Force Academy for him to start school, flew to Seattle from Denver and then drove up to Winthrop for the wedding.  In addition to going out for breakfast, we went to the glassblowing shop with them.  They have some really beautiful glass things and it is fun to watch the glassblower work.

So that pretty much covers the pre-wedding festivities.  Next blog--the wedding!