Everything you've heard is true.
When we announced that our wedding would be held in Denver, many of those who spent time with us there jokingly asked if it was because of Casa Bonita.
The answer is yes.
Hosting a wedding in a city that boasts one of just two (and, from experience, the better of the) Casa Bonita locations relieves a ton of planning pressure, because if you visit this place, regardless of how the events on Sunday pan out, you’re going to feel like you got what you came for. A couple of hours at Casa Bonita will fulfill everything you expect from a decent wedding:
| A Halfway Decent Wedding | Casa Bonita |
|---|---|
| Hot, single guests. | High school-aged cliff divers. |
| Enthused band that takes requests. | Mariachi band that takes requests. |
| Food that’s not so good that you spend the whole night eating, which would cut back on room for wedding cake. | Food that’s so bad you should not eat it, which leaves lots of room for the free, hot, unlimited sopapillas brought directly to your table. (Insider trick: Your waiter will also bring cinnamon and sugar, if you ask.) |
| Public fight between members of the wedding party. | The Sheriff and Bad Guy Black Bart shoot-em-up. |
| That one little kid who knows how to breakdance, and does so in the center of the dance floor, and even the people who insist they don’t dance come out to see what’s going on, and at some point he disappears and his mom finds him asleep under a table somewhere. | A gorilla who’s always escaping his captors, and even the people who are pretending not to notice that there’s a dude in a gorilla suit loose in the restaurant have to pay attention when he swings by (narrowly avoiding the man with the net!) to steal a sopapilla (which he can’t eat, because he has no mouth), and at some point he makes it back up onto the cliff, where you think he may, finally, this time, fall into the water…but his stealth maneuvering wins the hour, once again, and it’s the net guy who meets a watery fate. |
| A friend-of-a-friend who’ll let you bum a cigarette three hours into the reception. And who will have a light. | Flame jugglers. |
| Some sort of wedding favor stamped with the names of the bride and groom. | Gran Vista Casa El Mercado—“a shopper’s delight”—where you can purchase a keychain with your name on it, tins of mints that declare you “Gangsta,” an electronic dog, sombreros of all shapes and colors, and feather boas. |
| Centerpieces to steal. | Fanky Malloon, the automated helium balloon-dispenser. |
| A romantic place to lure a bridesmaid. | Black Bart’s Cave. |
| Uncomfortable toasts. | Really bad acting leading up to someone falling off a cliff. |
| Speculation as to why that guy lurking in the corner was invited. | Speculation as to why the obviously male gorilla is named “Chiquita.” |