When Lindsey first emailed me to book an engagement session during her and Jeff's visit here on a roadtrip to the state, I may or may not have squealed a little. She told me they would be in the Breckenridge area for ten days in January and wanted epic photos showing Colorado's beauty. We settled on exploring around the Dillon area and lemme just say: it was SO so perfect!
Of course, scheduling a mountain adventure session in the middle of the winter isn't without its concerns. Colorado has this nasty little habit of SURPRISING it's residents with the most random of weather: storms, cold fronts, wind, ice rain, and so many more. It can literally be 60 degrees one day, and blizzard white-out conditions the next with a 40 degree swing. Having lived here my entire life, I'm STILL NOT USED TO IT.
However, this story has a happy ending. The week of their engagement session came and went without incident. The drive up beautiful I-70 through the Rockies was quick and easy, and soon it was time to meet for pictures! We had temps in the 40s at 9,000 ft elevation and warm sunshine. We explored around the Lily Pad Lake trailhead area and surrounding hills of Dillon and Silverthorne, and finished our afternoon at the Dillon Ice Castles! This was my first time at the ice castles and IT WAS SPECTACULAR! What a fun and unique engagement photo idea! While the ice castles are filled with busy visitors, we were able to find empty corners and unique angles for a completely fun experience.
The Dillon Ice Castles were originally built in Alpine, UT in the front yard of Brent Christensen, founder of the current company. He built an ice cave for his daughter and tried out an idea of spraying a wood frame with water. His daughter named the structure the "Ice Castle" and the name stuck. The second Ice Castle didn’t have a frame of wood or anything else inside of it. It was made entirely with water, and Brent figured out how to build them using only icicles as the building medium. The same approach is used with the ice castles today, but it takes 50 people to do what Brent used to do alone. Each of the Ice Castles is a little over an acre, is all one giant piece of interconnected ice, and weighs more than 25,000,000 pounds! Their crews grow roughly 10,000 icicles every day and place them throughout the Ice Castles to provide something for the water to freeze to. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://icecastles.com/dillon.
For Lindsey and Jeff, being surrounded by the incredible mountains and beauty of Colorado was a treat in and of itself. This Kansas couple met on ChristianMingle.com (so many of my amazing couples have met online!) and are planning a fall wedding back home later this year. It was an absolutely PERFECT afternoon and I'm so thrilled to have met them! Congrats, you two!
