Getting the whole family there: transport for a Colorado reunion or wedding

On my desk is a photograph of a village wedding party from somewhere in Samogitia, taken, as far as anyone can tell, in the years between the wars. The guests are standing beside a line of horse-drawn carts decorated with ribbons and greenery. Nobody is smiling, which was the custom for photographs, but everybody has clearly arrived together, and that, more than the clothes, is what interests me about it.

Getting a scattered family to one place at one time is still the hardest part of any gathering. When a relative typed Denver Charter Bus Co Denver into a search box while planning a family reunion, the point was simply to see what moving a whole family by coach involves. This piece covers how to think about transport for a reunion or a wedding in Colorado, how earlier generations managed, and what to note down for next time.

How earlier emigrants got everyone to the table

A Lithuanian village wedding, the vestuvės, was traditionally a travelling affair. The groom's party went to the bride's farm, the whole company moved on to the church and then to the feast, and the carts, horses and drivers were organised well in advance by people who knew the roads. Distances were short by modern standards, but the logistics were taken seriously, because a wedding without its guests was no wedding at all.

The emigrants who came to North America kept the instinct, if not the carts. Parish picnics, weddings and funerals in the old Lithuanian neighbourhoods of Chicago, Pittsburgh or Toronto relied on whoever had a car, a borrowed truck or a cousin who drove for a living. Anyone who has leafed through the old emigrant newspapers will recognise the pattern: announcements of picnics, choir outings and anniversaries, and behind each one, unmentioned, somebody quietly working out who would drive whom.

What has changed is the spread. A family that once lived within a few streets of the parish church now lives in five states and two countries. A reunion means flights, rental cars, hotels and a great many messages, and that is where a single shared vehicle starts to make sense.

What a Colorado gathering asks of the family

Colorado is a natural place for a family reunion or a destination wedding. Denver has a large airport that most relatives can reach, and the mountains are close enough for a few days in Aspen, Vail or Breckenridge, whether for skiing in winter or walking in summer.

The difficulty is the drive. Mountain roads are beautiful and can be demanding, and in winter they bring snow, ice and closures. A relative who flew in from Vilnius or Toronto the day before is not the ideal person to take a hired car up a pass in a snowstorm. Nor is the uncle who insists he knows the way.

Altitude is worth a thought as well. Relatives arriving from sea level, and Lithuania is very much at sea level, can feel tired or short of breath for the first day or two in the mountains. That is a matter for their own doctor if they have any health concerns, but for planning purposes it means an easy first day, plenty of water and no heroic drives straight from the airport to a mountain town.

Then there is the question of keeping people together. A wedding with guests arriving in a dozen cars means a dozen chances for someone to get lost, arrive late or decide to stop for lunch. A reunion where everyone travels separately tends to fragment into smaller groups before the first dinner.

A coach or shuttle does for a modern family what the carts did in the photograph: it gets everyone there together. Many charter companies list services such as wedding transportation and shuttles between Denver and the mountain towns, and their own pages explain what they offer.

Two-country note: In Lithuania, it is still common for a wedding party to travel together between the ceremony, the photographs and the reception, and for the guests to be met by small obstacles and good-humoured tolls along the way, a custom with deep village roots. Families abroad often keep a version of this without the tolls. A shared coach is not so far from the old procession, and the singing on board is certainly in the same spirit.

Who arranges what

A family gathering of this size needs one person in charge of transport, and it should not be the person organising the food. In my experience it is best to give the job to the most patient relative with the best spreadsheet.

The order to work through is fairly simple:

1. Count the people and map their arrivals. Who lands when, at which airport, and with how much luggage. Families arriving from Lithuania often travel with suitcases full of gifts, rye bread and cheese, which take more room than you think.
2. Decide which trips to share. Airport to hotel, hotel to ceremony, Denver to the mountains, and back. Not every trip needs a coach; some can be done by a few cars.
3. Ask the company the practical questions. Vehicle sizes, how they handle weather and road conditions in winter, what happens if a flight is delayed, how much luggage fits, and whether they have experience with weddings or group trips.
4. Book early. Weddings and ski weekends fill calendars, and peak dates go first.
5. Send everyone a single page with pickup times and places, in English and, where needed, in Lithuanian for the older relatives.

When you speak to any transport company, ask about safety plainly: how drivers are scheduled for long mountain trips, and what the plan is when a road is closed. A good operator will answer without fuss.

What it costs in effort

Prices depend on the vehicle, the distance, the dates and the season, and only a proper quote will tell you. I will not guess. What I can describe is where the effort goes.

Most of it is in the first fortnight of planning: gathering flight details from relatives who do not answer messages, and working out who needs to be where. After that, the coach itself saves a great deal of effort, because nobody is hiring cars, finding parking, or driving in conditions they do not know.

There is also a social effect that is hard to put a value on. A family that travels together arrives together. The cousins who have not seen each other since they were children sit side by side for two hours on the road to the mountains, and by the time they get there they are talking as if no time had passed. That is worth something, and the people in my photograph understood it perfectly well.

The last effort is the return. Weddings and reunions end in a scatter of early flights and long goodbyes, and the trip back to the airport is often the most chaotic of all. Plan it as carefully as the arrival.

It helps to think about the older guests in particular. A grandmother who has flown from Kaunas is not going to want to haul a suitcase across a car park at six in the morning, nor to sit in the back of a small car for two hours with her knees under her chin. A vehicle with room to move, help with luggage and a driver who knows the road is, for her, the difference between enjoying the trip and enduring it. Earlier generations understood that the old and the very young travelled in the best cart, with the most blankets. The principle has not changed.

Before the next visit

Keep the transport page, the list of who travelled when and any notes on what went well or badly, together with the photographs. Write down which trips were worth sharing and which were not. And take one group picture beside the coach before everyone gets on. In eighty years, someone in the family will be glad to have it.