Couples who get married in October at the Stanley Hotel, situated at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains in Estes Park, Colo., sometimes have a hard time getting their guests to R.S.V.P.
Lauren Nichols and Jeffrey Sheffler, who will marry there Oct. 28, couldn’t convince a dozen of their out-of-town guests to stay on the premises of the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write “The Shining,” his novel turned film, after staying there in 1974. And Melanie Pingel, who married Kyle Johnson there Oct. 13, was compelled to reserve a quiet space on a separate floor for guests who needed a moment away from the ghostly festivities. “My mom called it the place where the old ladies get to go have a break from it all,” she said.
These and other concessions — Jennie Wilson, a 2017 Stanley bride, was told by a guest “straight up that she wouldn’t come” — are perhaps a necessary trade-off for couples who want to exchange vows at what many call “The Shining” hotel.
Only a handful of couples who plan well in advance are greenlit for their October celebrations, said John Cullen, the Stanley’s owner. Those who do snag a spot between Oct. 1 and Halloween, the hotel’s busiest season, tend to share a common aesthetic: bridal fangs and cakes with Frankenstein-like surgical stitching can be part of it. Flower girls dressed as the sinister, not-quite-living Grady twins from the 1980 horror classic, or table décor that includes jars of pig hearts preserved in formaldehyde, can also be used.
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