let it snow — prêt-à-provost

after a month off from the blog, i’m finally back and ready for action! some of you may have seen on my stories that last week i was able to live out my life-long dream of being elsa while in canada. okay, it hasn’t been thaaat long but since discovering the most incredible ice masterpiece in alberta from this music video, i knew i needed to get there one day. dana and i had been talking about going on a winter trip for some time and since she was going to have a week off before starting her new job, we knew then would be our chance!

dana and i have always had banff on our list and after krystal went this past december with the fairmont team and had a blast, we decided to finally pull the trigger and book our tickets. while we were initially planning on just going to banff, i randomly remembered the famous ice castle was in the same region! i frantically searched and discovered it was only a 4 hour drive away from banff in a city called endmonton! i convinced dana that we should do both and without a hesitation she agreed.

we flew out of lga to minneapolis for our transfer to edmonton. in total it took about 7.5 hours to get there. we decided to only stay in edmonton for the one night at the fairmont there because the ice castle was truly the only thing we wanted to do. the next day, we had a leisurely morning by sleeping in, eating the biggest breakfast imaginable, and picking up our rental car before the ice castle opened at 3. i prepared more for this shoot in freezing temperatures than for my entire trip to finland haha. naturally i had to wear a gown for such a moment (duh) so underneath this dress i had two pairs of leggings, snow boots, and hand warmers all around the waistband with my puffer coat on standby. but truly do not let my smile fool you…i was dying after the hour that we were there but it was worth every second! the work of the artists who design this castle every year are truly geniuses. there were so many hallways and caves that you could go into as well as slides and photo ops for the kids! after we shot, we ran back to the car to regain feeling in our limbs before making the drive over to banff.

the drive flew by and before we knew it, we were pulling into banff national park where our second hotel was located. what i wish we knew beforehand is that you have to pay a daily fee to the park even if you’re staying at a hotel within it. oh well! pulling up to the fairmont banff springs was truly magical and was something out of a story book. we immediately ordered room service and went right to bed. the next day we decided to drive to lake louise and explore the area there! unfortunately the weather didn’t totally cooperate with us because the snow prevented us from really seeing anything. i guess this means we will just have to come back again in the fall! we then went back to banff and partook in a little bowling at the hotel paired with some pizza. honestly this was my favorite thing haha!

on our last day, we took it easy and scheduled a spa day because it was clearly a very exhausting trip (kidding haha). we ended our trip with dinner at chuck’s for the perfect cozy meal right by the fireplace. it was such a short but sweet trip and i would love to come back during another time of the year!