February 5th, 2018!
Really great question. There are a few options: 1. For People in Los Angeles or the Bay Area: Drive/Carpool. Big Trees Lodge is about 4.5 hours from LA and about 4 hours away from San Francisco. 2. For People Flying to CA, you could: - Fly to FRESNO and rent a car: There are a surprising amount of decent flights to Fresno. The drive from Fresno is about 1.5 hours. - Fly to OAK or SJC: Both Oakland and San Jose are a little under 4 hours away from the park. - Fly to LAX, BUR, or SFO. As mentioned above, you'll then have to drive 4-5 hours. 3. Rollerblade. You've been wanting to and now's the time.
1. Big Trees Lodge. If this interests you, you will want to book a room ASAP as Yosemite lodging tends to fill up very quickly. There are rooms available with shared baths. The shared baths are great and clean, don't be scared. http://www.travelyosemite.com/lodging/big-trees-lodge/ 2. AirBnb! There are a lot of great houses that a bunch of people could book and split the price. We HIGHLY recommend you book a place in North Wawona (5-7 minutes from the lodge) or Fish Camp (15 minutes from the lodge). The closer the better! 3. The Redwoods in Yosemite: A great place that offers many different kinds of cabins in North Wawona (5-7 min from Big Trees Lodge). 4. The Tenaya Lodge: A nice hotel in Fish Camp. Multiple kinds of rooms and options. (15 minutes from Big Trees Lodge). 5. If you'd rather stay outside the park, keep in mind getting into the park can sometimes take anywhere from 30minutes to over an hour.
Maybe we should clarify this: we're getting married at Big Trees Lodge, which is a PART of Yosemite National Park, but it's not actually IN Yosemite Valley, which is the main part of the park. Yosemite Valley has a bunch of options for lodging which are all very nice, but keep in mind Yosemite Valley often has very bad traffic and it can take more than an hour to get from the valley to Big Trees Lodge. (To complicate things further, Big Trees Lodge was known as the Wawona Hotel until 2016 when a legal dispute with the Aramark Corporation forced Yosemite to change the names of many of their hotels. So if you're searching for Big Trees Lodge online, you might see it called Wawona Hotel. Don't be confused. Everything is fine.)
We'll be getting to Yosemite on Thursday or Friday (TBD) just for fun. For the actual wedding, you can arrive to the Big Trees Lodge around 4:30pm. We'll probably be hanging around until Monday or Tuesday (also TBD).
Yes. Sorry. But you’re supporting a National Park and that's good? The one-time fee for a 7 day pass is $30 per vehicle (no per-person fee, so definitely carpool!)
Wear whatever makes you feel good! Good and comfortable and fancyish but again: comfortable.
You can park at Big Trees Lodge, but sometimes space can be limited, so carpooling is highly recommended.