Can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks since the wedding weekend! Hillary and Keenan are still enjoying their honeymoon. Her instagram stories don’t even look real!

Excited to share the welcome party with you! One thing Hillary brought to the wedding planning table, almost immediately after getting engaged, was the hat bar idea. For the most part, she gave me full rein on planning and chimed in infrequently. It’s not that she didn’t care. She definitely wanted everything to be perfect and magical, but I guess she figured I would be the best person to do that for her. I mean I was pretty into it.

If you’ve been following along with the wedding posts, you’ll remember the hat sign Happy Menocal designed and it was just darling.

Knowing that many of our family and friends would have to travel to celebrate with us, and Whitefish is not what you’d call conveniently located, we had a strong desire to ensure a fun weekend for these folks. Whitefish is a charming mountain town offering a multitude of outdoor activities, so that part was easy, but we also wanted to have fun wedding related activities, and the hat bar was a match for that.

The Welcome Party was held at Jalisco Cantina, and it was an ideal location to welcome and entertain our friends and family. It’s a fairly new space with a large bar and seating area downstairs, and another space upstairs that opens up to a large deck. There is even more patio area to the right of the deck with more seating and fire pits.

Hillary and Keenan in front of their house before the Welcome Party!

We originally wanted to have the hat bar at the wedding, but Darci and Arden suggested the welcome party would be a better fit. With everything else we were discussing for the wedding reception, they felt the hats could get overlooked. On Friday, they thought the hats would make more of a splash and set the tone for the weekend.

Designing and branding hats onsite proved to be a fun and unique experience. Guests are invited to personalize their hats by choosing the size, color, band & feathers, and then they specify their initials or name to be branded while they wait!

Not a single person left that night without a hat. They could be seen throughout the weekend around Whiteifsh, and even at the wedding. They were definitely a hit. Hats off to Hillary for that fun idea!

One Experience travels for this unique special occasion opportunity and I highly recommend them.

At our spring meeting with Darci and Arden, they shared an additional idea to consider for the welcome party. They had recently produced a party where an organization called Montana Wild Wings Recovery, a rehab organization located in Northwest Montana, brought owls and kestrels and other birds to the event for a sort of meet and greet. They barely finished explaining, and Hillary was all in.

Although their goal is to release injured birds back into the wild after they are rehabilitated, they often have unreleasable birds due to permanent injury. If they don’t feel they will survive in the wild, and if they tolerate human contact well, the birds are trained and become a part of the educational programs.

This was a great addition to the evening and perfect for the outside area while people were waiting for their hats, and mingling by the fire pits.

The owls were a hoot!

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We had a popular local band for the night and they were fantastic - total Montana vibe and a perfect welcome to a fun weekend. Mike Murray is Montana magic! Here they are setting up before guests arrived.

Here is one of the only photos of me for the night, and my head is not included. My sister-in-law posted this on her instagram and I was cracking up. She is a comedian. She and my brother have four boys - 21 year old triplets and a 19 year old little brother. She was worried about bears, so we made sure they had bear spray. My brother overheard her lecturing the boys that morning, “Now make sure you spray yourself real good with that bear spray.” she said. She thought it was like bug spray to keep the bears away! I don’t think my brother was 100% sure if that was right or not, but thank goodness he knew to question before spraying. “Now wait a minute,” he said.

Anyway, here we are. The photographer was there most of the night, and I have to think he got some good photos - I’m counting on it! Otherwise, this is what we are dealing with.

Flowers were festive and matched the vibe of the evening.

The cute drink sign and cocktail napkins featuring Happy Menocal’s artwork.

What a fun night! The rain cleared up and we were so happy to have the patio doors open as we had hoped. Any welcome bags that were not already delivered were handed out as people left.