Breckenridge Winter Elopement | Loveland Pass + Christmas Tree Adventure

A Colorado Adventure Elopement Built Around Everything They Love

Some love stories begin with a dating app.

Others begin in a garden, covered in dirt, surrounded by vegetables destined for local food banks—and with a tall, handsome guy sporting a killer beard.

Ryan and I met in 2016 during a volunteer day at the Longmont YMCA. I was having a rough summer and decided to take advantage of the volunteer days offered through my company. The YMCA garden grows fresh vegetables to provide to local food banks, so I showed up one morning ready to work.

And that’s when I noticed him.

Tall. Good looking. Killer beard.

It took three volunteer days of talking, pulling weeds, playing in the dirt, and me catching and showing him every little critter I could find before he finally gave me his phone number and offered to help me get the apples off my tree.

I didn’t text him right away.

I waited until Halloween.

I invited him over to help hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. I made ribs in the smoker, and somehow our very first date turned into an evening filled with laughter, good food, and the beginning of something neither of us knew would become forever.

By the following June, Ryan had moved in.

Five years later, he proposed at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.

And when it came time to get married, we knew we didn’t need a traditional wedding.

We wanted a wedding day that felt like us.

So we chose a December Breckenridge winter elopement in the Colorado mountains.

Just Ryan.

Just me.

And our friend and Colorado adventure elopement photographer, Justyna.

And honestly?

It was perfect.

Coffee, Pajamas, and a Cozy Colorado Morning

Our elopement morning didn’t start with a big production.

It started exactly how we wanted it to.

Coffee.

Cuddling.

Pajamas.

And a warm fire.

Justyna met us at our Airbnb in the morning, and instead of immediately rushing out into the cold, we took some time to simply enjoy being together.

There is something incredibly special about starting your wedding day slowly.

No ballroom.

No seating chart.

No hundreds of people waiting for you.

Just the person you love, a cup of coffee, a crackling fire, and the knowledge that today is the day you get married.

Eventually, we changed, bundled up, and headed into the mountains.

A Winter Wonderland at Loveland Pass

Our first adventure of the day took us to Loveland Pass.

December in the Colorado mountains is something completely different.

Snow-covered peaks stretched in every direction, the air was crisp and cold, and the landscape felt almost otherworldly.

We spent the morning exploring, laughing, and taking in the incredible mountain scenery.

This is one of the reasons I love winter elopements so much.

There is something beautifully quiet about the mountains in winter. The snow transforms everything, and even a familiar Colorado landscape can suddenly feel wild and brand new.

For us, Loveland Pass wasn’t simply a place to take wedding photographs.

It was part of the adventure.

It was a place to stop, breathe in the mountain air, look at each other, and realize:

We’re actually doing this.

We’re getting married.

A Few Beers in Keystone

After our snowy mountain adventure, it was time for one of our favorite things:

Beer.

Ryan and I are big beer fans, so a stop at Steep Brewery in Keystone was a natural part of our wedding day.

And that’s what made our elopement feel so personal.

We weren’t trying to create a wedding day that looked like somebody else’s.

We were building a day around the things we genuinely love doing together.

Mountain views?

Absolutely.

Winter adventure?

Yes.

Beer?

Definitely.

And then came one of our favorite traditions of all.

Cutting Down Our Christmas Tree

Every year, we cut down our own Christmas tree.

So naturally, we couldn’t imagine getting married in December without making Christmas tree hunting part of our elopement.

We headed out to find our perfect little tree.

And eventually, we found it.

It wasn’t just another Christmas tree.

It became part of our wedding story.

There is something wonderfully ordinary about cutting down a Christmas tree—and something wonderfully extraordinary about doing it on your wedding day.

We weren’t standing in a traditional wedding venue.

We weren’t following a perfectly scripted timeline.

We were doing something that felt completely normal for us.

And that’s exactly what we wanted.

Christmas Lights, Presents, and Our Ring Exchange

After our adventure, we headed back home with our little Christmas tree.

We decorated it.

We opened presents.

We slowed down.

And then came the moment we’d been waiting for.

Our ring exchange.

There was something incredibly meaningful about ending our wedding day right there in our own little world.

The mountains.

The snow.

The Christmas tree.

The presents.

The fire.

The person we loved most.

It wasn’t extravagant.

It wasn’t complicated.

It was intimate, personal, and completely ours.

The Beauty of an Unconventional Elopement

I think this is what I love most about adventure elopements.

You don’t have to follow the traditional wedding formula.

Your wedding day can be a reflection of your actual life together.

If you love hiking, hike.

If you love coffee, start your morning with coffee.

If you love beer, stop at your favorite brewery.

If you cut down your own Christmas tree every year, absolutely make that part of your wedding day.

Your elopement doesn’t need to be a collection of wedding traditions.

It can be a collection of your traditions.

And that is exactly what Ryan and I created in Colorado.

A Breckenridge Winter Elopement Full of Meaning

Looking back, I don’t think we could have designed a more perfect wedding day.

We started with coffee and cuddles by the fire.

We wandered through a snowy Colorado landscape.

We explored Loveland Pass.

We shared a few beers in Keystone.

We cut down a Christmas tree.

We decorated it together.

We opened presents.

And we exchanged our rings.

Every piece of the day represented something about us.

There was adventure.

There was tradition.

There was laughter.

There was quiet.

There was winter.

And most importantly, there was us.

We feel incredibly blessed that we were able to have our friend there to document it all.

Because years from now, we’ll still remember the feeling of that December day in the Colorado mountains.

We’ll remember the snow.

We’ll remember our little Christmas tree.

We’ll remember the fire.

We’ll remember the beer.

We’ll remember the laughter.

And we’ll remember that when we finally said, “I do,” our wedding day looked exactly like the life we wanted to build together.

Simple. Adventurous. Cozy. Joyful. And completely ours.

Planning Your Own Breckenridge Winter Elopement

If you’re dreaming about a winter elopement in Breckenridge, you don’t have to choose between adventure and intimacy.

You can have both.

Your day might begin with coffee at a cozy mountain cabin and continue with a sunrise adventure at Loveland Pass. You could explore the snowy trails around Summit County, stop for a beer in Keystone, warm up by a fire, or build one of your own holiday traditions into the day.

The possibilities are endless.

As your Colorado elopement photographer, my job isn’t to give you a checklist of what your wedding day is supposed to look like.

It’s to help you create a day that feels like you—then document all the little moments that make it unforgettable.

Because your wedding doesn’t need to be bigger.

It needs to be yours.

And sometimes, the most beautiful wedding days are the ones that feel less like a wedding…

and more like another incredible day in the life you’re already building together.