Cal Neva in the New York Times

New York Times' Travel magazine did a photo feature on Tahoe. Check out photos of our wedding planner Sharon, and Cal Neva's Frank Sinatra Celebrity Showroom (and or originally planned ceremony site, Sand Harbor) in the New York Times by clicking this link.

Added by Colleen on Sat, May 16th 2009

Where to Stay?

A few links to get you started

Our plans are on the North Shore, so make sure your accommodation is there and not the South Shore. (You wouldn't want to negotiate those winding mountain roads after having a few beverages at the reception.) The town the ceremony and reception are in is Crystal Bay.

We have a block of rooms at Cal Neva available for reservation until May 20th. Phone is 800.CAL.NEVA, ask for the Kane Grubbs wedding block, rooms from $129-$149, suites more.

The cheapest hotel accommodation we've heard about so far is in Reno, one guest got a room for under $40.

We recommend using Trip Advisor to research other hotels and motels. It has user reviews and ratings that are helpful in making your decision. We used this site while traveling around Europe and it helped us find good deals and dodge a few bullets.

Groups who want to stay together can search for vacation rental cabins, houses, and condos here and here and here (there's more sites if you Google around). We were also very successful when traveling in Europe last summer using craigslist.org. We suggest you take a look as the prices range anywhere from $80 -$750 a night and can accomodate anwhere from 4- 25 people respectively. The prices may go down a bit during the summer as larger groups are not as frequent as they are during the winter for the skiing crowds.

Information about Tahoe campgrounds can be found here and here, for starters.

Added by Colleen on Sun, Nov 16th 2008

How Can We Get There?

You can fly into Reno (40 mins away), Sacramento (1hr 45mins) or San Francisco (about a 3-1/2 hour drive from the North Shore). Every time I've checked, Sacramento is the cheapest option, so that's what we took on our recent trip to Tahoe.

Many of our guests will be flying from the NY/NJ/CT area, so I've been watching the flights. The prices fluctuate, for example about a week and a half ago the best deals I found using Kayak.com were about $350 from Newark and JFK to Sacramento. Now the lowest price is about $80 more than that. I'm sure it will continue to keep changing. Kayak lets you set up saved searches that they email fares to you, so you can strike when the price is the lowest.

From the airport, you can rent a car or take a shuttle.
North Lake Tahoe Express services the Reno airport and it's about $35 one way, less with a group.
Here's another shuttle resource which also serves the Sacramento airport.
Other transportation options, including trains, taxis, and shuttles, here.

Added by Colleen on Tue, Oct 14th 2008

Green Wedding?

What's so earth-friendly about flying to a wedding?

Excellent point, subtitle! Our family and friends are scattered around the country: Northeast, PA, FL, LA, TX, CA. People would have had to fly to our wedding no matter where it was held, and many more would have driven to our wedding if it took place on the East Coast. There would be considerable carbon emissions no matter what. But here are some ways we're tryign to reduce the footprint of our event. You may remember we also entered a contest for people planning green weddings to win free wedding photography from the very talented Kristina Carter at Vrai, and we won!

• Vintage postcard invites instead of the traditional multiple-cards-within-envelopes-within cards-plus-tissue-paper scenario
• Guests will receive DIY carbon offsets, and we are going to plant trees on our friends' property while we're there.
• Some favors are organic, ethically-traded, and a portion of their cost goes to protect species, habitat and humanity.
  
• If you purchase flights, rental cars, hotel rooms, or goods using the online portal Earth Moment, which links to Kayak.com (where you can purchase discount flights), common car rental services, etc., they donate a small percentage to carbon offsetting. I haven't had much luck with my account when I tried it, but maybe you'll have more luck.

• The bride's engagement ring originally belonged to Tom's grandmother Edna "Teddie" Shoaf.
• The bride will wear a vintage dress, vintage shoes, and hopefully some vintage accessories.
• Bridesmaids are choosing dresses they will wear again.

• Rehearsal dinner will be held at Mamasake, a Cal-Asian sushi restaurant, which uses an eco-friendly fish supplier, uses organic ingredients when available, and offers numerous vegetarian and vegan choices.
  
• Reception food: some of it will be organic & local with quality veg options

• Most flowers for events are grown somewhere far away like South America, then shipped using fossil fuels, which isn't very eco-friendly considering we're talking about plants. We're looking into local organically-grown options for the bouquet.

• We're choosing sustainable items for the registry.

Added by Colleen on Tue, Sep 16th 2008