A Guide to Planning Your Maroon Bells Wedding in Aspen

For couples seeking a beautiful outdoor Aspen wedding, Maroon Bells is a dream venue. The natural shape of the valley funnels your guests from Aspen toward the magnificent vista made popular by its pleasing aesthetic shape and situation. And it is surprisingly easy to create a perfect wedding day at this setting. Because you need specialized details and advice to pull off your wedding celebration at Maroon Bells, we have it all here for you.

The US Forest Service manages this popular scenic area, providing a lovely private platform (which they call an amphitheater) that overlooks the meadow with Maroon Lake and the majesty of Maroon Bells as a backdrop. Reservations to use the platform for your wedding must be made on the website recreation.gov at a cost of $200. We don’t have to tell you to plan ahead! These slots reserve about a year in advance. There are a few constraints on this heavily trafficked, popular site. Saturday morning or afternoon wedding slots are available from the beginning of June to the end of September and the area accommodates only 65 people. (See our blog on Winter Wedding Tips.) Further, birdseed, confetti, and electrified music are not allowed. With your reservation, five vehicle permits are granted; local bus service is plentiful and easy. The large East Maroon Portal is a group campsite that accommodates your party all day if you choose to host your reception yards from the amphitheater at a cost of $75.

Limits, rules, and constraints aside, let’s talk about planning your wedding! And many local wedding planners create fabulous, memorable events every summer. Indeed, Jane Floyd speaks calmly about the task since she has managed so many! “The bride deserves to have the day off,” Jane says. And a wedding planner takes all the details of working with a governmental agency off your shoulders. Our local Aspen wedding planners provide experience and relationships that produce perfect Aspen weddings every time.

Jane Floyd and Associates, a boutique company, as well as many of our other wedding planning professionals know the particularities of Aspen weddings: the unpredictable weather, photography in the harsh sunlight, and the 9500 feet of elevation. They will consider all the difficulties of a Maroon Bells wedding including: choosing the best date and time, the fixing of a reception seven miles away in Aspen at a fabulous hotel venue, the problem of transporting everything a bridal party needs (including her guests!), and the necessities of producing your perfect event outdoors beautifully.

Thanks to Robin Proctor and Otto Schultz for photo use.

Kelsey Stamps

Hey, I’m Kelsey! I studied Social Psychology at CU Boulder and now split my time between writing about dreamy Aspen wedding spots, clever planning hacks, and real talk on international marriages (yep, American guys and foreign girls). I also run a small psychology practice, helping couples navigate love, culture, and everything in between. Connection and honesty are my non-negotiables.