Fairmont Hot Springs Resort

Sometimes the most beautiful wedding decoration is simply looking up.

At Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, two mountain ranges rise around the Columbia Valley, creating the kind of landscape that makes even a carefully planned wedding feel wonderfully small beneath it.

Couples can celebrate with indoor or outdoor ceremonies and choose among several distinct reception settings, from the Mountain Chalet to the Mountainside Clubhouse and traditional banquet rooms inside the lodge.

That means the wedding can take on very different personalities while remaining in the same mountain resort.

The Mountain Chalet has a cozy, vintage character, space for approximately 150 guests and an outdoor patio overlooking the valley.

The Mountainside Clubhouse offers something more rustic, looking across the fairways of the golf course toward the Rockies.

For larger celebrations, the lodge banquet rooms can welcome up to approximately 200 guests while keeping everyone close to the resort's accommodations and amenities.

Then there is the Rocky Mountain Panorama Platform.

Set against views of the Columbia Valley Wetlands, Columbia River and surrounding ranges, it gives a ceremony the kind of setting that barely seems real until you are standing in the middle of it.

Imagine waiting there before the ceremony.

Guests are beginning to take their seats.

The mountains are completely indifferent to all the nervousness happening beneath them.

Then the music changes.

Someone starts walking toward the person waiting at the other end.

And for a little while, the entire valley seems to become part of the moment.

Afterwards, there is no shortage of places to disappear for photographs.

The newlyweds can step away into the landscape while everyone else begins cocktails, taking a few minutes to breathe after the ceremony before returning to the people waiting for them.

That is where a resort wedding becomes something more than a venue booking.

Guests can stay.

The wedding can stretch into a weekend.

There are mountain mornings before the ceremony and slow breakfasts after it. People who travelled from different places have time to actually see one another rather than sharing only a few hurried hours at the reception.

And somewhere in between is the wedding itself.

For couples who imagine fresh mountain air, enormous views and the people they love staying close for more than one evening, Fairmont Hot Springs Resort gives the day room to become an experience rather than simply an event.