Some of our favorite weddings have started with a meadow and nothing in it. A tented wedding on a ranch or private property gives you the most creative freedom in the Roaring Fork Valley, and it asks the most of the planning. We have built weddings this way at McCabe Ranch, T Lazy 7 Ranch, and on private land in the Northstar Preserve.
You Are Building the Venue
An established venue arrives with a kitchen, power, restrooms, and a team that hosts events every week. Open land arrives with none of that. We plan every element of the site: the tent and flooring, power, water, restrooms, lighting, parking, and how guests and vendors move around the property without crossing paths.
Tented Weddings We Have Planned
For Clare and Kobe at McCabe Ranch in Old Snowmass, we turned a working ranch into a three-day venue: a sailcloth tent for cocktails and ceremony weather backup, power, water, internet, and restrooms, off-site vendor parking with shuttles, and golf carts carrying guests from the ceremony vista to the barn. Inside, velvet drapery and crystal chandeliers softened the barn’s rustic architecture.
See Clare and Kobe’s wedding →
Meredith and Jason married in the meadow at T Lazy 7 Ranch. A sailcloth tent, its entries tied back with greenery, held long tables in taupe linens and sage napkins with low white blooms and taper candles, an earthy palette that felt at home in the meadow. As daylight faded, candlelight carried the room.
See Meredith and Jason’s wedding →
Julie and Tobias married in early June on private land in the Northstar Preserve, along a protected stretch of the Roaring Fork River. The meadow was fully green and snow still sat on the peaks, so the florals leaned into the season with Icelandic poppies, ranunculus, and loose garden blooms in poppy, coral, butter yellow, and blush.
See Julie and Tobias’s wedding →
A Vibrant Summer Wedding at T Lazy 7 went big on color, with a towering floral chuppah, white garden umbrellas for cocktail hour, and coral, peach, and blush garden roses running down every table under the sailcloth.
See A Vibrant Summer Wedding →
We have also designed A Wildflower Wedding at T Lazy 7, and each one has looked completely different, which is the point of starting from an empty meadow.
Weather, Light, and Timing
A tent is also the weather plan. We decide early how it will handle sun, an afternoon storm, and a cool evening, and we plan lighting for the hours after sunset, when candlelight and fixtures carry the room. Most ranch sites sit outside town, so shuttles and a clear schedule for the ride back are part of the guest experience.
Budget and Timeline
The tent, flooring, rentals, lighting, power, restrooms, and transportation are all line items an established venue would have covered. A ranch wedding asks more of the budget and the timeline before a single flower is ordered, and site decisions need to come before design decisions. Our planning process starts with exactly that conversation.
Is a Tented Wedding Right for You?
It suits couples who want a setting no one else has had and are excited by a blank canvas. If you want the mountains without the build, consider a Little Nell wedding at the top of Aspen Mountain or a celebration at Hotel Jerome.
Exploring other settings? See all of our Aspen wedding and event venue guides.
Planning an Aspen wedding? Tell us about your plans, and we will follow up to talk through venues, timing, and what will suit your weekend.