Campgrounds offer a Scenic Setting for an Intimate Wedding Celebration

Having a
wedding in a campground made a lot of sense to Tara and Scott Garcia of
Milwaukee. After all, they met at Willow
Mill Campsite in Rio, Wisconsin when they were 13 and spent every
summer camping there with their families while they were growing up. Scott
Garcia even proposed to Tara at the campground — in a scenic spot where the
Jennings Trout Stream meets with another stream and flows over a dam.

But when it came to planning their wedding, the Garcias liked
the idea of taking what is normally a 5 or 6 hour event and transforming it
into a weekend celebration at the campground where they had so many fond
memories with their family and friends. “People started arriving as early as
Thursday night,” Tara Garcia said, adding that the rest of the group arrived
on Friday.

Most of their guests camped in tents or RVs, while the areas
stayed overnight at a nearby hotel. “By having our wedding in a campground,
we were able to celebrate the whole weekend,” Garcia said. “We even had our
rehearsal dinner at the campground. People could socialize by campfires in
between the different events, and during the day some of our guests were able
to go fishing.”

While the Garcia’s wedding was
certainly unique, growing numbers of couples are getting married in
campgrounds, particularly during the spring and fall, when fewer people travel
and campgrounds can more easily accommodate large wedding parties. Campground
weddings are also becoming more common as campgrounds step up their
investments in rental accommodations, such as cabins, park models and yurts,
which can accommodate people who don’t have an RV and don’t want to sleep in
a tent.

In addition to being in scenic locations, many
campgrounds also have banquet facilities, which can easily be used for
wedding receptions. Wisconsin
Riverside Resort in Spring Green, Wisconsin, for
example, has a 400-capacity banquet facility as well as a restaurant and bar.
“We just rebuilt the restaurant and bar and added the banquet room in 2011,”
said park co-owner Suzanne Shifflet, adding that the campground is a popular
location for weddings.

Some families also like the idea of
having a wedding and reception in a campground because it can be a more
affordable venue than a hotel. Many also like being able to having a lengthy
reception and not have to worry about their guests drinking and driving,
since they can simply spend the night at the campground. While some
campgrounds can provide meals for wedding receptions, others have kitchen
facilities that they can make available to wedding parties that prefer to do
their own cooking. Still other wedding parties opt to have their meals
provided by outside caterers.

While campgrounds can be relatively
affordable venues for weddings and receptions, some couples spare no expense
when it comes to celebrating one of the most memorable days of their lives.

Consider
Franny Teran and Charlie Freund. When they got married at at Ocean
Mesa at El Capitan
Canyon in Santa Barbara, Calif. in 2011, they
kicked off their weekend festivities with a sing-along around a bonfire on
Friday night as their guests enjoyed tacos and margaritas. On Saturday, they
recruited some of their guests to make floral arrangements while others
painted a “chuppah” or canopy, which Franny and Charlie would stand under
during their Sunday wedding ceremony. The chuppah is a tradition in Jewish
weddings. Their Saturday night activities included a Western hoedown with
live music and a square dance caller, and a barbecue dinner that included
tri-tip, chicken, roasted corn and beans. The actual wedding ceremony took
place late Sunday morning and was followed by a brunch
reception. Franny Teran said they had about 150 guests at their weekend
wedding celebration. Many came in their RVs, while others stayed in El
Capitan Canyon’s park models and yurts. A handful of guests also pitched
tents. 

While it may be hard to beat Franny
and Charlie Freund’s wedding for the sheer variety of activities, meals and
entertainment they provided, the Garcias’ wedding might set a standard for an
elegant yet rustic, nature themed wedding. They had their mid-September 2012
wedding ceremony outside in an area of Willow Mill Campsite where a narrow
sliver of the campground sticks out into a 40-acre spring fed fishing
pond. 

With fall colors sweeping across the
campground, the guests were seated on folding chairs, while members of the
wedding party were brought two by two to the wedding site by horse-drawn wagon.
Tara and her father then surprised their guests by arriving at the ceremony
on a two-person pontoon boat, which they paddled to shore as a guitarist
played “Lullaby” by the Dixie Chics. “My dad and I are very close and I
wanted to do something special with him,” Tara Garcia said.

After the wedding, the Garcias had their reception inside a
huge white tent that was filled with round tables covered with white table
linens, burlap placements and handmade table decorations, which the Garcias
made using small logs, twigs and branches from trees that had fallen during a
recent tornado. Each center piece log was branded with a heart that included
Scott and Tara’s initials. A local caterer provided the reception meal, and
the cake was made by the bride’s sister.

Little details
made the day even more special. “Our favors were s’mores on a stick with
a marshmallow dipped in chocolate and rolled in Graham cracker crumbs. Each
one had a tag with the guest’s name and table number and on the other side it
said ‘Enjoy s’more love,’” Tara said.

Thinking back to the days when she was a teenager, Tara Garcia
said she never dreamed she’d fall in love at Willow Mill Campsite, but she
always felt she would want to get married there. “At that time, of course, I
had no idea that (the campground) would be where my love story would begin.
Although I saw myself standing at the alter with Scott for many years, I
never knew how much the venue would mean to me once we started our planning.
To be able to marry my best friend at my favorite place in the world that
holds so many great memories for us truly was remarkable beyond
words.”