Weddingbee Blog

As I mentioned in my post about the remoteness of our wedding, Mr. Cherry Pie and I have decided to rent a few vehicles to to shuttle guests from the hotels to and from the wedding site.

We think this is an awesome idea for a few reasons:

• Our out-of-town guests (um, everyone?) can relax instead of worrying about driving directions and dirt roads
• It means that everyone flying or taking the train can completely abstain from renting a car if they want because there is transportation provided from the airport/train station (for a fee) and inside the park (for free)
• All of our guests can drink and dance and drink and dance without driving themselves into a ditch on the way back to their hotel!
• Having a shuttle will cut down on our emissions and prevent too much wear and tear of local roads

At first, I imagined shuttling our guests to and fro in some of Glacier Park’s classic renovated “red jammer” buses.

But our wedding coordinator, Katalin, had worked with them before and found them to be prohibitively expensive. I was disappointed, but I’d guessed as much based on the fact that there are a limited of red jammers and taking a regular tour on one is quite pricey.

Instead, Katalin found us two shuttle bus companies near Polebridge (Kalispell and Columbia Falls, respectively) with affordable rates. They were fairly comparable, and each offered regular old-school school buses in addition to the fancy-schmancier charter buses. The school buses are definitely more cost effective, but they don’t offer the amenities (air conditioning, bathrooms, video monitors, etc.) of charters.

I don’t think that we really need the charter buses for the 20-mile trek from Glacier to Polebridge, but having the option for AC might be nice if the weather is warm. And honestly, I really love the school bus look. Maybe I’m just a huge dork, but aren’t they cheerful and nostalgic? Not really rustic OR elegant… but a nice bit of classic Americana, right?

Our plan is to have the bus drive into West Glacier, pick up guests at the Lake McDonald Lodge, head to the Apgar hotel (which is on the way) and continue to Polebridge. We’re thinking of starting the ceremony at 3 or 4 pm and making sure our guests get there at least half an hour beforehand so they’ll have time to mill about, socialize, and find their seats. After dinner and dancing, we’ll have another shuttle waiting to take guests back to their hotels.

We’ve budgeted for two buses, which we’ll reserve if enough people RSVP for the shuttle. Regardless, we’ll probably have two staggered shuttles to return guests to their hotels so that the elders and party poopers can get back to their early bedtimes while the rest of us can stay until “last call” or have a bit of an after party at the saloon.

I’m hoping that offering a shuttle will make life easier for our guests. But we also want to make the shuttle ride (about a half hour to forty minutes) fun and interesting. Any tips on how we could do that? Or should we even bother?

If you were a guest at our wedding, would you want to ride a round-trip shuttle? Would it matter if it were a school bus or a charter bus?

( Image source: 1, 2 )