The doors from this wedding are going to live on their ranch forever. Dunbar Ranch, Aspen.

160 acres. A private lake. The Continental Divide as your backdrop. And a couple who are actual Colorado ranchers, which means every detail of this weekend was rooted in something real.

Logan and Jace got married at Dunbar Ranch just outside Aspen, Colorado, across two days that couldn't have been more different from each other and more perfectly matched. Lisa photographed both, and this is one of those weddings you look at and feel lucky to have been there.

Lauryn Prattes Events designed and planned the full weekend, and the level of intentionality in the work, from the way the tent floor plan was designed around the pendant lights to the custom chapel doors that will eventually live on the couple's own ranch, is the kind of thing that makes photography feel effortless.

Night one: swing dancing, saddles, and BBQ under the stars

The welcome party at Dunbar Ranch was a love letter to the couple's Colorado lifestyle, and it did not hold back.

Guests arrived to string lights stretching across an open meadow with the mountains silhouetted behind them. A band called A Band Called Alexis played country into the night. Guests swing danced with actual cowboys. Hats were branded at the bar while guests sat on saddles. BBQ plates were passed under a blanket of stars. Hermes scarf-lined cocktail trays. Silver western-inspired napkin rings. A neon horseshoe sign with Logan and Jace's names glowing warm in the mountain air.

There's no other way to describe it: this party had a soul. It wasn't western-themed. It was western, because these two people genuinely live that life, and Lauryn Prattes translated it into a celebration that felt completely authentic and completely once-in-a-lifetime at the same time.

Aesthete Floral Atelier brought soft summer florals. House of Wilde Events handled decor. The Rancher Hat Bar was exactly what it sounds like. Casa de Perrin and The Onic Collection covered rentals. Oxygen bar on site, because Aspen.

Wedding day: chapel doors over a mountain lake, and a glass tent at dusk

The ceremony was on a custom-built boardwalk platform over one of Dunbar Ranch's private lakes, with aspen trees framing the view and the Rocky Mountains rising behind the aisle. Aesthete Floral Atelier covered the ceremony structure in soft summer blooms, the palette light and airy against the green and grey of the landscape.

At the start of the aisle, custom-built chapel doors opened for guests as they arrived. Those doors are going home to the couple's own ranch after the wedding, a permanent reminder of the day. That's the kind of detail that shows you how much thought went into this.

The couple made their way to the reception by bronco, because of course they did.

The reception was inside a glass greenhouse-style tent built by Sandone Productions, and it is one of the more extraordinary reception spaces we've ever photographed. The structure had clean black steel frames and clear panels on every side, which meant the landscape was always visible and the light shifted beautifully from golden hour through dusk and into evening. Lauryn Prattes designed the interior around oversized drum shade pendants, hanging warm and sculptural over long tables. The tent and floor plan were actually designed around those lights. Casa de Perrin, Reverie Social, and Nuage Designs handled rentals. Aesthete Floral Atelier built lush tablescapes in soft tones that held their own without competing with the view outside.

Straight Tequila Night played the reception. Romina Gentilini performed. The room moved.

The aerial shot of that tent glowing gold over the ranch in the blue of early evening is one of the images from this wedding that stays with you.

How we tell the whole story, from the drone shot to the dance floor

There's a version of wedding photography that prioritizes the grand moments: the aerial of the ceremony, the first look, the sweeping landscape. And those images matter. The drone shot of this glass tent glowing against the mountains at dusk is extraordinary precisely because of what it shows you about the scale and the setting.

But those images only mean something if you also have the small ones. The laughter between Logan and her best friends before the ceremony. The way Jace looked when the chapel doors opened. The moment someone's hat flew off mid-swing dance. The chaos and the joy and the genuine unscripted aliveness of a room full of people who love this couple celebrating the night they've been waiting for.

Our approach is always to hold both at the same time. The epic and the intimate. The architecture of the day and the texture of it. The image you'd frame on your wall and the one you'd show your kids to explain what the night actually felt like.

At Dunbar Ranch, that meant Lisa was everywhere: on a golf cart racing between ceremony and cocktail hour, drone up, water bottle close, watching the mountains change color while also watching the dance floor tip into something electric. Altitude and all.

Those are the images that tell the full story. Start to finish, big to small, beginning to whatever hour the band finally stopped.

On shooting destination weddings in Aspen and Colorado

Dunbar Ranch is one of those venues that makes you understand why people choose to get married in Aspen. The property is genuinely unlike anything else: private, vast, surrounded by wilderness, and somehow both completely wild and completely refined. The light in Colorado at altitude has a quality that doesn't exist anywhere else, a clarity and a warmth that makes images feel like they were shot inside something golden.

We shoot in Aspen and across Colorado regularly and look for any reason to be back. If you're planning a destination wedding in Colorado, at Dunbar Ranch or elsewhere in the mountains, we'd love to know about it.

Welcome Party

Planning and Design: Lauryn Prattes Events Photography Lisa: Abby Jiu Photography Cinema: Easton Film Co. Venue: Dunbar Ranch Tent: Sandone Productions Design Partner: St. James Design House Decor: House of Wilde Events Rentals: Casa de Perrin, The Onic Collection Florals: Aesthete Floral Atelier Catering: Hickory House BBQ, Caribou Club Catering and Events Beauty Team: G.G. Artistry Team Stationery: Derriere Design Entertainment: A Band Called Alexis AV/Lighting: Technical Event Hat Bar: Rancher Hat Bar Oxygen Bar: Rescue Lounge