Marion & Stephen’s wedding weekend started in the evening the night before - people traveled in from all over the States to spend the weekend with them. They rented out a ton of rooms at Skyland and had a rehearsal campfire where they gave out blankets to all their guests so they were warm for the chilly ceremony and gave them all the details for the 4am hike the next morning.
In the weeks leading up to their wedding weekend, they sent out emails to everyone with information and plans for the weekend - they also asked that everyone send flowers instead of gifts, so they used flowers from all over the United States (including Hawaii!) as their flowers for bouquets, flower crowns, leis, and to decorate the brewery for their reception.
For the hike, there were two ways to get to the ceremony location - all their friends and family and Stephen took the shorter hike while Marion, her parents, sister, and myself took the longer hike. When we reached the summit, everyone was there waiting. They had their ceremony RIGHT as the sun was rising. Marion walked up the “aisle” with her dad to bagpipes! After the ceremony, they had hot coffee with Irish Cream, bagels and cream cheese, and took tons of group photos. We hiked back down, took a small siesta, and then went to Restless Moons Brewery in Harrisonburg for a live band, delicious food, and brews.
Up on the mountain it was the absolute coldest I have ever been in my life - but by the time we went down to the brewery, the day had warmed up and it was perfectly delightful.
