Alaskan Cruise Part 1 :: Vancouver & and the BC Coast

I realize that the traditionally accepted format is to leave on your honeymoon immediately following, or at least within a day or two of, the wedding.  However, in the real world there is this thing called vacation time, which has a tendency to complicate things... primarily in that we didn't have enough vacation time to get married and go on a honeymoon all in one go.  I mean, I suppose we could have, but as much as we like to complain about working, remaining employed is kind of a priority.  First world problems, I know.  In the end it worked out to our benefit because it turns out you can get a WAY better room for your money if you wait until August.  

So on August 22nd, we packed what little cold weather gear we still own (because "cold" where we live means temps below 80) and hopped on a plane headed north.

Because what good vacation doesn't start with a coffee and a Guinness?  We landed in Vancouver, BC that afternoon with great expectations of exploring the city.  After a false start in which Colby was the recipient of the world's largest pigeon poop to the head, we found our way to a pub where we spent pretty much the entire rest of the day.  The next morning we took a walk along the waterfront and watched the seaplanes take off and pretty much just soaked in the view and the 60 degree temperatures until it was time to check out of the hotel and head to the dock.

We cruised with Royal Caribbean on the Radiance of the Seas and maybe I've just lived under a rock all this time, but it was freaking amazing!  Why have I not been on a cruise before now?!  Its like a floating city full of bars! And food! And more bars!!! We were still discovering bars on like the very last day of the trip. As a side note, we recommend the premium beverage package... if you are going to drink, you may as well make it easy on yourself.

All I have to say about Day 1 is that balcony rooms are totally worth every penny.  After hanging out on the upper decks with the crowds and downing pina coladas while we pulled out of Vancouver, we wandered around the ship for a bit to see what it had to offer before settling down on our balcony to enjoy the view of the British Columbian coast.

Putu, our stateroom steward, who was both adorable and amazing made sure to leave us a towel animal to welcome us to our ship.

Did you know that after they help you like one time, everyone on the ship remembers your name?  Your waitstaff, the bartenders, stateroom attendants... its crazy!  I'm sure they have all kinds of trickery to help them manage it, but as someone who has helped the same patients every month for like two years and still struggles to remember some of their names I was pretty impressed.  And did we mention the bars??

Our Lajitas Wedding

Let's start this blog off with our most favorite adventure to date... Our wedding. We decided to get married in southern Texas.  So far south, in fact, that one of our guests might have accidentally tipped his golf cart into the Rio Grande while out screwing around golfing prior to our ceremony.  If you are heading south in West Texas, you'll pass through a whole lot of ugly country before all of a sudden it opens up into some beautiful rugged mountain country.  This is Big Bend country.  And nestled down in the very tip of the Big Bend is a golf resort called Lajitas.  Its about 40 miles from the headquarters of Big Bend national park, and maybe 15 miles from Terlingua... both excellent places to visit which will get separate posts of their own later.

photo credit: Amy-Rose King Photography

 photo credit: Amy-Rose King Photography

Lajitas is designed to look like an old western town, complete with false-fronted buildings and a boardwalk sidewalk.  There's a pretty decent restaurant with good food and super friendly, but pretty slow service.  Although, in their defense, we did bring like sixty people and drank them completely out of Shiner Bock beer, so we may have been a bit more than they could handle.  And the Thirsty Goat is a nice cozy place to have some drinks with a view.

  photo credit: Amy-Rose King Photography

  photo credit: Amy-Rose King Photography

There is even a spa, where my lovely Mother-in-law scheduled me a massage the morning of the wedding. Its small and simple, but even for being out in the middle of nowhere, the massage was great. Bonus, we were already friends with the masseuse from hanging out in Terlingua the night before!  And when my mom woke up with a killer toothache the day of... not to worry.  One of the management put her in touch with the physician's assistant that keeps an office there and he got her all fixed up.  Even if she did talk his ear off, toothache not withstanding.

We had our ceremony at the Calvary Post, followed by a reception in The Ocotillo, which is a second restaurant that the resort is not (or at least not at the time of the wedding and this posting) using as a restaurant.  Apparently they use it as a clubhouse for the golf course, but the rest of the time its just hanging out empty available for parties.  The original plan was to have the reception at the Thirsty Goat and using the surrounding patio as extra space. But, it turned out way more people were willing to trek practically to Mexico to see us get married than we expected so we moved it to the larger Ocotillo at the last minute, and we are SOOOOO glad that we did.  It was perfect.  But enough rambling, lets look at some gorgeousness from our amazing wedding photographer, Amy-Rose King...

And some ceremony shots...

And some from the reception...

I know its a ton of pictures but seriously... Amy-Rose did an amazing job (seriously, if you need a photographer, hire her. She is fantastic. I can't say it enough.) And who doesn't want to show off their own wedding??

And not to sound like an ad for Lajitas, but they really did do an amazing job.  Everyone from the food and beverage guy, who pretty much turned into our wedding coordinator and all his staff down to the gals that worked the front desk and the waitstaff at the restaurant... everyone went out of their way to make sure everything was perfect for us.  And we have to give special props to their chef who gave us an over the top FANTASTIC meal.  We have to recommend the chorizo duck gumbo and the quail with tequila marinade.  It was epic.

And if you happen to be a bride that stumbled here because you are thinking about Lajitas and want to know what your options are, or what it looks like, or what other Lajitas brides have done, I have a few links for you.  When we were planning, I googled the crap out of Lajitas weddings trying to get ideas and see what I had to work with because the pictures on their website are tiny and don't do the place justice at all.  But it was really hard to find pictures from actual weddings there!

Amy-Rose's blog post
Our full gallery on Facebook

This couple had their rehearsal dinner at the Ocotillo, the ceremony at the Calvary Post, and the reception at the Candellaria/Amphitheatre.
Photographers blog post
Rehearsal
Ceremony
Reception

This couple had both their ceremony and their reception at the calvary post
Facebook gallery

And I don't think these photos do the chapel justice, but here's some of a wedding at the historic chapel as well.  (Just remember it was 95 degrees at our wedding in April and the chapel only has a ceiling fan or two...)
Gallery