Trip to the Mountains: A surprise email

I already shared with you our "official" honeymoon.  That was the one we had been planning all along, but about a month before the wedding I received an email that just blew me away.

Now, before I tell you what happened exactly I want to say that I think I entered every single wedding giveaway I could possible find.  From winning wedding dresses to Crate and Barrel's $100,000 dream wedding giveaway, I was there.  There were about a million different honeymoon trips I entered.  I hoped that winning something would help cut down costs and give us an opportunity we would not have normally had, but I NEVER thought we would win anything.

So imagine my surprise, when I got an email from mywedding.com telling me that I had won their giveaway to Devil's Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, Colorado.  I was completely blown away.  My stomach jumped up in my mouth for a moment there.  First I was excited, but then I became suspicious.  These things are always too good to be true.

So I looked at the email which I thought looked pretty legit.  I researched the person who sent it along with Devil's Thumb Ranch.  Everything seemed great, but I was still very hesitant to tell anyone.

I knew the website well since that is who was hosting our wedding website which we had been using all along to get information to guests and it is where all our guests RSVP'ed.  After talking with the hubby and getting advice from the parents, we decided to go forward with it and accept the trip, but still being very cautious.

They even announced our names as winners on their website,

Press Release

And featured us on their blog, delightfully engaged:

Check out the article for the whole story.

I continued e-mailing back in forth with Kara from mywedding.com, and she put me in touch with a travel agent who would book our flight and car rental, and with the concierge at the hotel who would book our spa treatments and dinners.

We decided to use the trip as a second honeymoon, since we would not have time before the wedding, and starting in August the hubby would be super busy with his season starting.  So we opted to take a long weekend a week after we got back from our Florida Honeymoon.

Although we were very nervous that the trip wasn't going to work out (which is why very few people actually knew about it), we were very excited.  I had never been to the mountains before and it would be a nice escape from reality after getting back to work for a week after being married!

Spoiler alert: It was a blast.  I will share our adventure with you soon!  Until then here is a teaser picture: