Fall Shades of Mauve and Orange Wowed at This Wedding at Devil's Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, Colorado

Bailey and Nick tied the knot at Devil's Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, Colorado with a fall wedding. As a way of embracing the beautiful season, the couple selected an autumnal color palette of mauve, mustard and burnt orange for their elevated-yet-rustic wedding day. From there the couple layered in plenty of personalization to their Colorado wedding—from dog-inspired wedding favors to ample calligraphed stationery details and swoon-worthy floral arrangements. At each turn, the elements of the couple's wedding continued to up the wow-factor of their dreamy fall celebration. 

Given the couple's close ties to the Rocky Mountains, settling on Devil's Thumb Ranch for the event was a no-brainer. From there, the rest of the day fell seamlessly into place. "My family has been going to Winter Park to ski for many years, and have a cabin there that has become one of our favorite places to go for a little getaway," shares Bailey. "Nick and I even got engaged in Winter Park a year before our wedding. When we decided to start looking at venues, we knew we wanted a mountain setting as we've grown up around mountains as Colorado kids. When we first toured Devil's Thumb Ranch and knew it was a special place. The views at the ranch are stunning, offering mountains and pastures with horses. The foliage is gorgeous in the fall, so we knew this was the place we wanted from the start. All of the different event spaces within the ranch appealed to us as we knew we wanted to make it a multievent wedding weekend, not just a wedding day. Being able to host the rehearsal dinner, welcome party, reception and day after brunch all on the same property was really appealing." 

However, before even welcoming guests to Devil's Thumb Ranch for their multievent wedding weekend, Bailey and Nick gave attendees a sneak peek of what to expect from their on-palette wedding invitations that were complete with wax seals and calligraphy. "We really wanted to lean into a modern fall color scheme for our wedding. We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful colors Colorado fall has to offer and use those in our paper suite," says Bailey. For their stationery design, the couple wanted "a 'wow' factor for our guests from the start of the event, which meant sophisticated and classic, yet bold and striking save-the-date and invitation colors. We wanted every aspect to be intentional and unique, starting with the custom calligraphed envelopes and finished with beautiful ribbon accents and a custom wax seal."

Once guests arrived in Colorado for the wedding weekend, a big welcome party kicked off the celebration. But first, custom wedding welcome bags greeted attendees in their rooms. "We had about 200 people at the wedding and we really appreciated that our guests could spend an entire weekend with us and we wanted them to feel appreciated and special. We wanted the wedding welcome bags to be a reflection of us. There is a family-owned candy shop in Colorado Springs that I grew up going to with my grandfather. We included goodies from the candy shop in the welcome bags for a personal touch. We were thrilled to have so many guests for our big day, so we wanted to show our appreciation for their travel by hosting a welcome party the night prior to the wedding after the rehearsal dinner. Devil's Thumb Ranch offers so many wonderful venues on property, so we used the smaller Broad Axe Barn for the welcome party. Nick loves all things whiskey, so we hosted an old fashioned bar in the scenic Timber House with special flavors (classic, grilled peach, and blackberry thyme). We loved getting to see all of our guests before the hectic wedding day." 

While he wasn't physically at the wedding, the couple's English bulldog, Dudley, made several special appearances throughout the wedding weekend. To start, the wedding welcome bags included cookies decorated with Dudley's likeness. "Our English bulldog, Dudley, is an important part of our lives—we knew we needed to honor him in some way at our wedding. He is not much of a 'mountain dog' so having him there on the actual day was not going to work. Instead, we chose to have our bar 'hosted' by Dudley, in addition to the dog cookies in the welcome bags."

In addition to personalizing their wedding with the inclusion of Dudley, it was also paramount to Bailey and Nick that their wedding reflect and honor their shared Catholic faith. "We had our wonderful priest from our church in Denver come up to the mountains to help us tie the knot," says Bailey. "The wedding mass ceremony was really important to Nick and me, so we are so grateful to not only our priest for making the trip but for Our Lady of the Snow for hosting us. In the Catholic religion, the sacrament of marriage is sacred, which means the vows said during the ceremony are the same for every couple who gets married in the church. We love this tradition and love that the vows we made to each other were the same vows our own parents made on their wedding days. However, we did want to have an opportunity to personalize our day and remind one another of the specific reasons why we loved each other and what we wanted to promise for our marriage. We decided to write one another letters to read before the ceremony so that we could express these intentions privately before we celebrated them publicly at the ceremony." 

Bailey goes on to share that "in the Catholic religion, 'sacramentals' are items believed to connect to the seven sacred sacraments. They are places or objects that provide spiritual protection. One of the oldest sacramentals in the religion is the Agnus Dei, a disc of wax impressed with a lamb. Dating back to the 5th century, the pope would harvest small pieces of the disc to bless and bestow to those in need of God's protection. The nuns would take the small wax pieces and sew them into fabric. A friend of the family, Sister Virginia, who resided in the local Monastery, gifted this special item to my mother. My mother has had this with her for every major life event—including the births of all of her children. As a surprise to me, she had it sewn into the seam of my dress to offer me protection on my big day. Overall, across the entire wedding, Nick and I tried to really capture our personalities in every decision and choice throughout the planning process so that our wedding was a true reflection of our lives as a couple. Between the Colorado fall color scheme, personalized signage, table settings, food options, and entertainment choices—you could see our personalities in each part of the wedding day."