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Ski Proposals, Weddings & Honeymoons in the Alps
- Will
- Jun 7
- 5 min read
If you love the mountains almost as much as you love your partner then check out our guide on how the Alps can be the backdrop to your story.
America2Alps' experience of Alpine romance
I believe in the magical romantic power of the mountains. Their extreme beauty is uplifting, sliding down them is exhilarating and keeps you pretty fit and healthy. It's a recipe for having a smile on your face, which is always a good starting point if you are in the market for love.
There's a saying about ski towns for girls: 'the odds are good, but the goods are odd'. Luckily for me, A2A co-founder Carey, was willing to let any eccentricities slide to a certain extent when she made a trip out to Val d'Isère, the resort where I was working, with a group of friends in March 2010. She joined my ski group and was extremely speedy, always being so hot on my tail it was difficult for me to see her to give any feedback. It meant we were always riding the chair together, and over the following days I showed her round Val's best slopes and après spots. After her week-long vacation was up and she left to return to her city I found myself feeling pretty bereft. We stayed in touch, though, and when the snow melted and my latest instructor exams were finished in May, we met up. Fast forward a year and she took a work sabbatical to come out to Switzerland for the winter, where I was working the following season. These were some of the best days of my life. In January, when there weren't so many clients, we had many epic powder days together skiing the back-country around Verbier - and I knew that I wanted her to be my ski buddy from now on.
That meant I had some serious work to do. Planning a proposal is a delicate balance of probing to find out how certain things will go down, and maintaining secrecy so that you get the right level of surprise when you finally get to the moment.
I took a few days off and we planned a road trip from Switzerland, over the Simplon Pass to Italy. I had a rock burning a hole in my pocket, and I had the location picked out - the shores of Lake Como, in the town of Bellagio. Scenic, memorable and romantic, I thought it would be an awesome place to return to on anniversaries. I hadn't taken into account quite how cold it would be, so persuading Carey that we needed to go out for a morning stroll was a challenge, but once we were bundled up the sparkling frost-filled air and serene still waters were working their magic for me. Bellagio in winter is a different beast to summer, and we had the town mostly to ourselves. We reached an impossibly cute cove, and heart pounding it was time. I got the surprised reaction I was looking for (plus a couple of swear words) and, most importantly, she said yes.
Plucking up the courage before a successful outcome
Italy seems to innately understand romance, and we followed up Bellagio's ethereal scenery with Valentine's Day in Verona, where the entire city was decorated with pink hearts and the Amarone wine put us in a celebratory mood. Next stop was Venice for Carnival, where we admired the costumes and enjoyed the lack of crowds, before heading back to Switzerland via Chianti in Tuscany, with a set of memories and stories that would make us smile for years to come. And yes, we went back to Bellagio for our 10th wedding anniversary a couple of years back.
If you'd like help planning your own version of this, please reach out and we can work on something that will blow your intended away.
Weddings in the Alps
Traditional wedding season is in full swing, with couples' special days coming thick and fast until the end of October, when the numbers getting married start to tail off. If you have your heart set on a summer or fall wedding then that is totally understandable. We got married in September, but we did have quite a few things to give a nod to our ski connection.
Getting married in ski season in the Alps is a cool and memorable way to mark this most important of days. The simplest way to do it is to take care of the legal side of things in the US, and have the ceremony in the the mountains. This will save you a lot of time and work navigating the, sometimes considerable, paperwork and requirements and allow you to focus on each other and your guests, and to have the best day possible.
Honeymoons in the Alps
Even if you have a summer or fall wedding, a ski honeymoon is wholeheartedly recommended. In case you didn't know, organizing a wedding is a lot of work, and jetting straight off afterwards can be one more thing to do, so it can make sense to have a bit of time between the ceremony and honeymoon.
If you do want to ski and would like to go away after your summer wedding, you still have options. Zermatt and Cervinia, on the border between Switzerland and Italy, have year round skiing on a glacier - plus hiking, e-biking, helicopter flights, golf, Michelin-starred dining and fantastic hotels with seductive honeymoon suites. Add on trips to the Italian Lakes, Venice or Rome for more brownie points.
When we get to the winter months, your range of choices expands considerably. The first thing to do is narrow down your country. Take our quiz to find out:
When we work with people to plan a special trip we always like to suggest some of the things which will give them a story to tell in years to come. A great hotel room is undoubtedly an important part of the puzzle, but will it be the thing you remember in twenty years' time? Although our favorite suite at the magnificent Chedi in Andermatt does come with in-room spa facilities, as well as granting you exclusive access to the main hotel spa for two hours every night, which anyone fond of being pampered will adore.
Memorable experiences include heading out for first tracks with the ski patrol, dog-sledding, wine tasting, heli picnics on a glacier where a table carved out of snow will be set by a butler, who also serves you Champagne, wine tasting, cheese sampling, behind the scenes tours of Europe's great art galleries and more.
For a sample honeymoon take a look at our Dolomites trip:
If you've been given the vital task of planning the honeymoon and would like some help making it awesome, reach out and let's discuss what you're looking for.
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