New Details

We realize that many of you will be traveling from a considerable distance, but please bear with us - we can't be everywhere at once. That said, we'd like to be able to spend as much time with each and everyone of you as possible. So, we've planned a few events besides the wedding for which we would like for all of our out of town guests, family and some of our closest Juneau friends to join us. Such as...

The rehearsal dinner on Friday night. Yes, we do know that it is Friday the 13th. Thanks for pointing that out. Again. Although we can't reserve the spot until January (6 months in advance), we are planning on a casual bbq at Auke Rec for Friday night. This was actually one of the places we considered having the wedding and reception, but we decided to go for a place with more cover, just in case it rains. Anyway, Auke Rec is a US Forest Service picnic area lining the beach of a beautiful little cove north of town. We should be able to reserve a shelter or two and they are well equipped with stone fireplaces (even in July, some of you might find Juneau a little nippy), bbq pits and picnic tables. The view is unbelievable! We've seen porpoises and whales in the cove more than once. Should be a great time for everyone to get to know each other.

Auke Rec

We have selected a (tentative) location for the ceremony. Tentative only because, just like Auke Rec, it is a US Forest Service facility and therefore we have to wait until January to reserve it. Skater's Cabin is an old stone cabin on the edge of Mendenhall Lake. The view from in front of the cabin captures not only the lake, but the gushing Nugget Falls on the far side of the lake and the Mendenhall Glacier. Because we are planning to have only family and close friends (including anyone traveling from out of town!) at the short ceremony, this should make for a perfect location. Oh, and when I say short ceremony, you should know that just got back from my cousin Craig's wedding in Hawaii. After their ceremony, which lasted no more than 12 minutes, John turned to me and asked, "Ours doesn't have to be that long, does it?" Too bad "badda boom, badda bing" isn't an official wedding ceremony.

Skater's Cabin

View of Mendenhall Glacier from Skater's Cabin

We are thinking of an mid-afternoon (3ish, perhaps) wedding followed by a short pre-reception reception (drink) at Skater's Cabin. We will have buses to pick people up at their hotels and bring them to the wedding, then on to the reception back in town. The reception will be at the Juneau Yacht Club, beginning about 2.5 hours after the wedding and going until we all pass out. Buses will then take people back to their hotels. Just in case, the Yacht Club is within walking distance to the downtown hotels.

Aurora Harbor with downtown Juneau in the
background. The Yacht Club, our reception site,
is the blue roofed building at the bottom left of the photo

Then, just in case you all haven't gotten enough of us, we have reserved a catamaran to take us all whale watching on Sunday evening from 5 - 8 pm. Keep in mind that the sun barely sets here in July, so even at 8pm there will be plenty of daylight. We're very familiar with the routes taken by the whale watching tours and even though they won't guarantee you whales, I will. We'll either cater or bring left overs from the reception and there will be a bar on board (plus any kegs we didn't finish off the night before) so we'll go ahead and consider this the post-reception reception. The only catch is that this is a pretty pricey endeavor, so we are asking that everyone pay their own way. The price will be $45 per person and we would really appreciate knowing in advance how many of you plan to come. If there are only 5 people interested, we will have to cancel before we lose our deposit. Just as a means to compare, cruiseships bring people to Juneau by the thousands (literally) every day between May and September. Many of them take this exact same whale watching cruise and they pay $120! We'll set up some way for everyone to RSVP for the cruise when we send out invitations.

Hopefully many of you are already taking advantage to the low airfare offered by Alaska Airlines until Nov. 2nd. As you make you plans, we would love to hear what your schedule is so we can be sure to make every effort possible to see you as much as we can during your stay. Just drop me an email with you flight info if you like, so we know how long we get to see you.

As more of the big details fall into place, the idea of a wedding and party for 300 friends and family is becoming less stressful and more fun. We are so excited and can't wait to see you all here in Juneau!