A VERY CANADIAN WEDDING WELCOME PARTY AT FAIRMONT BANFF SPRINGS
A VERY CANADIAN WEDDING WELCOME PARTY AT FAIRMONT BANFF SPRINGS
If you’re going to ask all of your favourite people to travel to Canada for your destination wedding, you might as well give them the full Canadian experience.
For this US based couple’s winter wedding at Fairmont Banff Springs, the wedding weekend wasn’t going to begin with everyone simply meeting for drinks.
Instead, guests bundled up, laced up their skates and met outside the castle for an afternoon on the ice.
There was falling snow, mountain views, hot chocolate, s’mores, blankets, fires and one of the most iconic hotels in the Canadian Rockies towering behind it all.
Basically, Canada understood the assignment.
A DESTINATION WEDDING WEEKEND IN BANFF
There is something I love about destination weddings that turn into an actual weekend rather than a single wedding day.
When guests have travelled from another country to celebrate with you, there is such a good opportunity to make the days surrounding the wedding feel like part of the experience too.
And Banff might be one of the easiest places to do exactly that.
Fairmont Banff Springs has been part of the Canadian Rockies since 1888 and is known as the Castle in the Rockies. Surrounded by Banff National Park and mountain scenery in basically every direction, the hotel already feels like a destination before you plan a single wedding event.
For guests arriving from the US, spending an afternoon skating outside a literal castle in the mountains felt like a pretty perfect introduction to Banff.
A WINTER WEDDING WELCOME PARTY AT FAIRMONT BANFF SPRINGS
Wedding welcome parties have become one of my favourite parts of destination wedding weekends.
There is none of the structure of the actual wedding day yet.
Nobody needs to be anywhere in ten minutes. There isn’t a ceremony timeline running in the background. People are arriving, hugging friends they haven’t seen in forever, meeting each other for the first time and settling into the weekend.
For this one, everyone met outside Fairmont Banff Springs for an afternoon of skating.
Some guests immediately made their way onto the ice.
Some were considerably happier staying wrapped in blankets beside the fire.
Both were valid choices.
There was hot chocolate to warm up between laps around the rink, s’mores to make by the fire and plenty of time for everyone to actually hang out before the wedding celebrations really began.
And then it started snowing.
Which, photographically, was almost offensively perfect.
THE MOST CANADIAN WEDDING WEEKEND POSSIBLE
There are destination weddings where you could almost forget where you are.
This was very much not one of them.
The stone exterior of the Banff Springs rising behind the rink, snow falling against the mountains, people skating beneath string lights and everyone warming up beside the fire made the entire afternoon feel unmistakably Canadian.
That sense of place is something I think makes a destination wedding so special.
If you’re bringing everyone you love somewhere new, let the location become part of the wedding.
You don’t need every event to be formal.
Sometimes the thing your guests remember most is drinking hot chocolate in their mittens while trying not to fall over on a pair of skates.
WHY A WELCOME PARTY IS SO GOOD FOR DESTINATION WEDDING PHOTOS
From a photography perspective, welcome parties are also kind of magic.
I get to meet everyone before the wedding day.
Your family gets used to having me around. Your friends stop noticing the camera. I start figuring out who belongs to who and which people are going to be responsible for absolute chaos at the reception.
By the time the wedding day arrives, I’m not walking into a room full of strangers.
And because a welcome party is naturally less structured, the photographs have a completely different energy.
People are moving.
Talking.
Laughing.
Falling on skates.
Making s’mores.
Sitting beside the fire.
Running into someone they haven’t seen since the last family wedding.
Nothing needs to be manufactured because something is already happening everywhere I look.
For the way I photograph weddings, that is pretty much heaven.
WINTER AT THE CASTLE IN THE ROCKIES
Fairmont Banff Springs is one of those places that photographs completely differently depending on the season.
In summer, everything surrounding the hotel is green and the terraces open toward the mountains.
Winter changes the entire personality of the property.
The dark stone architecture suddenly sits against white snow and muted mountain peaks. Guests are wrapped in coats and blankets. Fires are going outside. Snow catches in the light.
It becomes moodier and a little more nostalgic.
The hotel itself has been welcoming guests to Banff since 1888. The original hotel was eventually replaced by the present structure, which took on much of its current appearance by 1928.
There is something pretty incredible about photographing a modern destination wedding against a place with that much history.
Especially when the wedding doesn’t try to compete with it.
HOT CHOCOLATE, S’MORES AND A FIRE IN THE ROCKIES
One of my favourite things about this welcome party was how simple the actual idea was.
Go skating.
Get cold.
Come sit beside the fire.
Make a s’more.
Drink something warm.
Repeat.
It wasn’t about creating another highly produced wedding event.
It was about giving everyone something to do together.
And those are often the situations that create the photographs I love most.
Hands tying skate laces.
Someone cautiously stepping onto the ice.
Friends holding hands while they skate.
Marshmallows disappearing into hot chocolate.
Half eaten s’mores.
People tucked underneath blankets.
Snow collecting on coats and hats.
All these tiny pieces that would probably feel insignificant on their own become the atmosphere of the afternoon when you see them together.
PLANNING A FAIRMONT BANFF SPRINGS DESTINATION WEDDING
If you’re travelling to Banff for your wedding, especially if many of your guests have never visited the Canadian Rockies before, I would absolutely consider building an experience like this into your wedding weekend.
Fairmont Banff Springs works particularly well for destination weddings because your guests can stay at the resort while wedding events and other experiences happen around them.
The hotel itself offers multiple wedding and event spaces, while Banff National Park and the Town of Banff give guests plenty to experience throughout a longer stay.
It allows the wedding to become more than a ceremony and reception.
It becomes a trip everyone happened to take together.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF WEDDING WELCOME PARTY
I love a beautiful welcome dinner.
I will never say no to cocktails and a really good tablescape.
But there was something about this afternoon that felt even more appropriate for a destination wedding in Banff.
It gave everyone permission to actually experience the place they had travelled all this way to see.
No formalwear.
No seating chart.
No elaborate schedule.
Just skates, mountains, snow, hot chocolate, fire and the people they were about to spend the weekend celebrating with.
The next day could be about the wedding.
This afternoon was about arriving in Canada.
FAIRMONT BANFF SPRINGS WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY
As a Calgary wedding photographer, Fairmont Banff Springs is one of those places I could photograph over and over without running out of ideas.
There is obviously the scale of the Canadian Rockies, but there is also the architecture of the hotel, the changing seasons and all of the smaller moments that happen when you bring people together somewhere this beautiful.
For destination weddings especially, I love documenting more than just the wedding day.
The welcome drinks matter.
The afternoon skating matters.
The people sitting beside the fire matter.
The half eaten s’mores and snow covered coats matter.
Because years from now, those photographs become part of the story of what it actually felt like to bring everyone you love to Banff for the weekend.
And for a Canadian winter wedding welcome party, I’m not sure you could have planned it much better than this.
