Wildflowers and Downhill Biking: Neile & Ryan's Tahoe Wedding at Zephyr Lodge

Northstar Zephyr Lodge Ceremony | Photo Credit: Sierra Flower Farm

The Couple’s wedding day vision: wildflowers and sustainability

Neile and Ryan’s destination wedding vision was to gather family and friends from various corners of the country for a Tahoe Mountainous wedding. They wanted their wedding flowers to provide the ultimate wildflower experience to their guests throughout the wedding. Apricot, salmon, blush with creams and cool toned foliage to be like Lake Tahoe at sunset.

Sustainability and being eco conscious was also important to the couple, which is one of the main reasons they chose to go with a local flower farmer as their wedding florist. For their arbor, to bring in the unique beauty of Aspens that are found throughout the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we worked with a local arborist to source the aspen logs to custom build the arbor. We also used renewable, biodegradable and reusable components to bring their wedding floral vision to life with minimal waste. As with all the left over wedding flowers, they went into the compost pile to bring life to the future wedding flowers- giving them back to the earth they came from.

Drawing Inspiration from the native wildflower meadows

The Sierra Mountains come to life in July with color! The snow melts and is replaced with trickling streams, filling picturesque lakes and rivers then… a diverse range of flowers begin to pop up. The bare patches of dirt become a food source of all the pollinators and other inhabitants and put on quite the display of color and texture.

To bring the wildflower aesthetic to Neile and Ryan’s wedding we incorporated whimsical corn cockle, seed and grass pods. and sweet pea vines. With Neile and Ryan’s wedding date being in early July, we used the last of our spring flowers mixed with the first of our summer ones. Salmon ranunculus, apricot cosmos, white corn cockle, peonies, tetra feverfew, cosmos, larkspur, bronze chantilly snapdragons, dusty miller, frosted explosion grass and the first of our salmon zinnias were our main stars for this wedding. Apricot violas worked wonderfully for the guest’s name tags. Bringing in texture and variety that could easily come across as chaotic into a cohesiveness that honored the natural beauty of Lake Tahoe.

The Venue: Zephyr Lodge

Neile and Ryan’s wedding was held at the tippity top of a mountain at Northstar’s Zephyr Lodge. The lodge is a food and hot beverage refuge for skiers during the winter months that is transformed into a wedding venue during the summer months. For the guests to get up to the wedding location, it takes a couple (yes a couple) gondolas to get up the mountain. For us vendors, we had to go the back way to bring the trailer with a guided drive up the back side of various black diamond slopes. Hauling a nineteen foot trailer on the side of a mountain… well let’s just say I’m glad I wasn’t the one driving!

It was quite the adventure before even getting on site. Once there we were greeted with many downhill bikers zooming past us.

The ceremony location was right outside the lodge itself set up on wood chips with the seats facing the exquisite mountains. Up a couple steps led you up to the lodge. When you enter into the building, it is actually much bigger than it looks from the outside with its high ceilings, big chandeliers and grand windows that overlook the mountains. Inside is a very rustic, Tahoe traditional lodge with wooden king tables. With all the natural wood, the lodge itself needed brightening up with cheerful flowers.

The lodge also has a wrap around deck where you look down to a valley of rugged mountains below and into the mountain range. The deck is where the cocktail hour would take place but with heat lamps and fire pits, it also became a great hang out for those who needed a break from dancing.

Neile’s Bridal Bouquet before loading up | Photo Credit: Sierra Flower Farm

The Designs

The backdrop for the couple’s ceremony was clear blue skies, mountains with tufts of wildflowers at their feet. With the ceremony location being breathtaking enough, we aimed to enhance the natural beauty of the surroundings rather than distract from it. A minimalistic aspen arbor with light and airy floral design to better frame the couple. Ground floral designs peppered the entrance way and aisle that gave a meadow-like feel to complete the look.

For the Bridal Bouquet, Neile wanted a tamed unstructured bouquet meaning more rounded and upright without being too wide or cascading while still looking like the bouquet was casually scooped from the garden. Minimal greenery with more emphasis on lush blooms coupled with textural wispy ingredients to pair with Neile’s two piece French gown. As with each of our weddings, we draw inspiration from the Bridal Bouquet to flow down into all the other designs for a cohesive look. There was one special guest at the wedding that I was personally most excited about.

The couple flew out their beloved fur baby: Foggy. Foggy needed to look her best as she stood by her humans during the ceremony. Foggy the doggy was such a sweet and wonderful dog, her floral collar was one of my favorite parts out of all the designs. Being a larger dog with layers of fur, her floral collar also needed to be able to stand out. I am still amazed at what a good girl she was going up and down the gondola to the wedding location then sitting so patiently during ceremony.

Another special aspect for Neile and Ryan’s wedding was that Neile’s brothers actually played the music for the ceremony, such talented musicians. After the ceremony, guests were guided to the deck for cocktails where they were greeted by various sized bottles with flowers tucked in to get their seat assignments and wine goblets with florals upon each table to continue their adventure with wildflowers. Once the guests were ready to sit down for dinner, they were greeted by a whimsical flower posy with their name tied on with rustic twine.

Each table had five floral designs running down the table in custom made periwinkle ceramic containers paired with pink Himalayan salt taper candles. Between the florals and the accents on the tables, the lodge created a light and airy feel inside the rustic lodge giving, what we like to call, a “Tahoe Chic” vibe.

Wildflower name tag | Photo Credit: Sierra Flower Farm

Congratulations Neile & Ryan!

Neile and Ryan were an amazing couple to work with. Neile is such a detailed oriented person and I greatly enjoyed collaborating with her to bring her wedding floral vision to life. To read more on her take on her wildflower Tahoe wedding and see more photos, you can read that here.