Next Stop: UTAH. A Full Honeymoon Travel Recap! (Days 1-3)

To answer the most commonly asked question regarding our trip: No, we didn’t become mormon. Lol.

Hi lovelies!

I hope you’re having a great week so far! I have been so excited to write this little travel recap up for you guys but life has been pretty crazy post-wedding (finishing moving, unpacking, going back to work, learning how to be a wife, ya know the usual!) But today we are here and we’re making it happen!

For those of you that may not know, my husband and I got married in Nashville, TN on Saturday, October 12, 2019. I am anxiously awaiting my wedding photos (you get just one teaser photo below – a personal favorite 🙂 ) and so to distract myself from getting toooo impatient as I wait, I wanted to write up a couple posts to document our honeymoon – something I don’t have any shortage of photos to share on!

So here we goooo!

//

October 12 – BNA –> DEN

Step one of the day today: get married! ✅

Step two of the day: hop on a plane to Denver, CO!

PS pro-tip for any of you engaged (or will one day be engaged) friends, if you have someone you know call the airline on your behalf before you travel – Southwest (and maybe others) may or may not give you a little honeymoon gift…just saying 🙂

Step three of the day: arrive in Denver!

Once off the plane, we literally just had to walk across the street because my dad had gifted us a room at the Westin at the Denver airport (so kind!) – and honestly such a blessing after a full day of wedding craziness. While we were waiting to get checked in, we ran into another couple that just had come from their wedding – which was so sweet! We’ll likely never see them again but fun to know we’ll share an anniversary!

Once we made it up to our room, we basically just crashed – planning/having a wedding is hard work, people ha! We order room service, changed into our comfiest clothes, Curtis helped me take out the obscene amounts of bobby pins in my hair and then we fell asleep.

October 13 – DEN –> SLC –> Heber City

We woke up nice and early the following morning and just happened to be up to see the sunrise! It was SO lovely! It was so nice being able to just lay in bed and watch it happen. We then just didn’t get out of bed & spent the remainder of our time before needing to get up and get back over to the airport, reminiscing about the day before and discussing our favorite parts because WOW. What a special day! We contemplated getting up & venturing out to get coffee but that never ended up happening. If you’ve ever planned a wedding, you know full well that the following 24 hours, your bed and sleeping are your best friends….in addition to the actual best friend that you just married!

We eventually got out of bed and got ready for our day around noon. We didn’t have a flight until 2pm so we weren’t in any kind of a rush.

Around 1pm we walked back across the street and into the airport.

Once we made our way through security, we boarded our flight to Salt Lake City! It was a quick 1hr flight – which, can I just say, those flights are my favorite. You get up to cruising speed, get your drink of choice and then by the time you finish your drink you’re about ready to land. Idyllic.

We hopped off the plane at SLC (Miley, anyone?), got our fancy shmancy upgraded rental car (honeymoon perks are so real!) and then immediately headed to get some coffee…because do you know us? Of course we did. We picked Bjorn’s Brew. It was a cute little shop, full of cute puppy photos for you to adopt/support. The coffee, however, wasn’t our favorite so I can’t say I’d recommend it if you’re planning a trip to SLC. We then ventured to Trader Joes because my plan for this part of the trip was once we made it to where we were staying, we’d just kinda camp out there & have no reason to leave unless we wanted to. We got our groceries for the next couple of days and then headed to our temporary place of residence!

We arrived at the A-Frame just before sunset and I had a few moments of just sheer awe and excitement that we had made it! This place that I had been in love with for YEARS, we were actually here!

We snapped a few quick photos of this gorgeous place (as you can see) before it got dark and we cozied in for the night.

Our first evening in the A-Frame was nice. We started the fireplace, made some dinner and snuggled up on the couch with the bottle of champagne that Southwest gifted us (okay so they totally do give you a gift!) and just talked about how wild it was that we were married and on our honeymoon – something we had planned/looked forward to for so long was here, it was happening. We had survived!

We did end up going out that evening after discovering that the A-Frame uses well water* – something we’ve had experience with before and isn’t a big deal but trying to drink it was a whole different (horrible) experience so we popped into town to buy a few bottles of water to tide us over for the next couple days of our stay.

*The fact that the A-Frame had well water was not something I have seen mentioned by ANYONE in the 5 years I have been reading reviews/following them so that was a little disappointing. Especially for how much money it costs to stay there, it just would have been nice to know. This was our “splurge” expense for our honeymoon so it was a bit of a bummer. That said, it was still such a nice and relaxing stay regardless!

October 14 – Heber City

The following morning, we woke up and tried to catch the sunrise again but ended up missing it because we were surrounded by mountains in the East…classic!  Curtis then popped downstairs and made us breakfast – he brought me mine in bed 🙂 Then we got up, I (finally!) showered – hello a rats nest situation of hair from not washing out all the hairspray from the wedding….*facepalm*

We got dressed, took a few more photos of the A-Frame in the ~dreamy~ golden daylight and then headed into Park City!

Park City is primarily a ski town so it was actually pretty neat to see it during its “off” season! The colors were beautiful. That’s something I haven’t shared or mentioned yet but DANG. Y’all, Utah is GORGEOUS in the fall. You can see just a tiny glimpse of that in some of these photos but wow. So, so pretty.

Our first stop in Park City was just to the little downtown area. I had a few coffee shop stops that I wanted to make, none of which had oat milk (major bummer!). We ended up finding a tinnny coffee shop nestled on the top floor of a multi-use building (it was a barber shop, a clothes/outdoor store, a juicery and a coffee shop all in one!)  It was called the Pink Elephant Coffee Shop and PRAISE THE LORD had Oatly – the queen of oat milk in my opinion 😉 We each got iced lattes even though it was a little chilly.

We then found a little stop for lunch called 501 on Main. It was delicious! I ordered a vegan chili with 1/2 of a smashed avo toast sandwich. Curtis got the bison burger. I think we were both pretty happy (& very full!) with our choices. They also gave us a free dessert once they found out we were on our honeymoon – so sweet!

Once we were both stuffed to our heart’s (and belly’s content) we headed into the mountains. There were no shortage of places to drive and experience the beauty of this state. This happened many times on this trip but we didn’t make it too far up the mountain because we kept pulling off to take in the scenery. We ended up on the side of one of these mountains as a final stop on our adventure. Just look at this view!!

After this pit-stop, we decided to head back down the mountain and head back to our cabin home to make some dinner and watch the sunset. I’m kicking myself for not taking photos of this evening but just know it was beautifulllll.

The remainder of this evening after dinner was spent on the couch, in front of the fireplace, chatting. All of my quality time cups were filled up to the tippy-top on the first few days of this trip. I loved our stay at the cabin for that reason, it’s such a place of relaxation and minimal distractions to really encourage human connection.

//

Okay friends, there you have it. The first couple days of our western adventure! Check back in a couple days to see where we headed to next!

XOXO

-Bri