Weddingbee Blog

[ Part 1 ]
[ Part 2 ]

( Aerial photo of a Polebridge wedding by Gravityshots.com )
In the end, it was a good thing I didn’t settle on a venue too quickly, because it took me a few weeks after we left the park to realize that I knew exactly where we should get married.
On our trip to the Isaak Walton Inn, we saw a flier advertising Aurorafest, a folk/rock concert in Polebridge, a tiny town just “down the road” (albeit a bumpy dirt one) from the Cherry family inholding. Another serendipitous coincidence for us!

We’d never visited Polebridge on a Glacier trip together. Mr. Cherry Pie had gone once or twice during his childhood with his pop, but he didn’t remember too much about it except that it was super small and the Mercantile made the best baked goods ever. We’d also heard rumors about the town’s protectiveness of its isolated, historic, and freewheeling status, but weren’t sure whether this was the fun-loving hippie kind of preservation or more of the “you damn kids git off my lawn” variety. Both are very possible in Montana but it turns out Polebridge is populated by a friendly group of grassroots folks who are bent on keeping their town the funky, free-spirited haven it has become.

More specifically, Polebridge is a tiny, historic town located down just outside the Camas Creek entrance to Glacier National Park. The town is comprised of a cluster of small, “old timey” buildings, all of which are powered by generator. At one point, Polebridge came near to being completely wiped out by a wildfire, the results of which can be seen for miles around where the town took its last stand. But Polebridge survived to become very well-known for its baked goods from the iconic red mercantile and for the classic “Northern Lights Saloon.”Well, we didn’t have any plans on that Saturday, so we decided to head into Polebridge for baked goods and some free music.

Well, we enjoyed Aurorafest and we LOVED Polebridge. It reminded me of the four years I spent living in Eugene, Oregon, which is (next to Berkely) Hippytown, USA. I felt right at home! We danced and drank and made merry until it was time to go home and pack for the drive back to Seattle.

Strangely, because we hadn’t visited Polebridge on the pretense of scoping the location for our wedding, it didn’t even occur to me that it was an option until much later. Weeks after we returned home, I was mulling over the venue dilemma while lying in bed. I was imagining our guests dining and dancing at some hypothetical location… but where? Suddenly, Polebridge came to mind. I turned to Mr. Cherry Pie and said “Hey, what do you think about getting married in Polebridge?” He said, sleepily, “That sounds like a good idea.”

And after all the fuss and muss of searching for a venue, that was that. The perfect place was right in front of us all along!

We love Polebridge because it gives us the flexibility to personalize our wedding while still using local vendors. It’s a unique and atmospheric location, outdoors, with the option for live music and dancing on a beautiful stage. The Mercantile will be making our cake and possibly providing other pastries. The Northern Lights Saloon is catering, providing beer and wine, and acting as a cash bar for guests. Meanwhile, we’re free to party in our big tent out in the field until the wee hours. Like I said, it’s a little rough around the edges… sort of a combination of rustic Montana and hippie chic. We’ll be able to have a simple, fun, and elegant (more “natural” elegant than “church” elegant) ceremony without anyone stepping on our toes. And best of all, we have far more flexibility to do what we please than at any of the other venues we considered!

Our wedding coordinator has been talking with others who were married at Polebridge and has confirmed that we won’t be dealing with a lot of contracts, signatures, late fees, and fine print. They just don’t seem to do things that way there. It’s more of a spit-and-a-handshake kind of town. And we have to be careful, because if we push too much for formalities, we seem to run the risk of making the gentle residents into grumpy-pantses.

You know, I’m quite happy with casual agreements, and more than a little relieved that there won’t be any fine print. When folks say “yeah sure bring your own wine in” they really mean “yeah sure,” not “but only if you purchase from one of three vendors at a 50% markup and consume all alcoholic beverages under the green awning by 9:47 pm or risk violation of contract.” Working this way will just be different than I expected. It’s also different than our wedding coordinator’s normal M.O., but I am fully confident that she can handle it.

And it has been somewhat difficult, so far. The folks at Polebridge are very laid back about communicating with us, which means that they’re not always prompt to reply to our questions. Life out there “off the grid” moves at a difference pace and with the seasons. Nevertheless, I am glad to have a wedding coordinator on our side to make phone calls… regularly… and have them not returned… regularly. Knowing now that we will be going this route, without paperwork and deadlines and legalese, actually makes me even more glad we hired her. I’d be going insane if I had to do that myself!

So far, despite some stresses and setbacks, everything is falling into place and we’re looking forward to throwing one hell of a party in this great town!

To whet your appetite for wedding-related photos, here are some shots of another wedding in Polebridge taken by Ventana Photo.

Like us, did you end up choosing a venue that was entirely unexpected?