Steamboat Springs — Some local business owners are saying 2010 was a big year for weddings in Routt County, and as summer bookings heat up in the middle of winter, efforts are under way to keep the bells ringing in 2011.

“For me, it definitely was a record year — I did over 35 weddings this summer,” Lindsey Grannis, owner of One Fine Day Productions, said about 2010. “I had weekends where I was triple-booked.”

Grannis said numbers for her wedding planning and florist business were up about 25 percent in 2010. On Aug. 21, for example, One Fine Day had three weddings in Routt County, with a total of more than 400 guests. Grannis said most of her weddings are “destination” events, which attract people from outside the county who want to tie the knot amid the Yampa Valley’s scenery and other attractions. Her largest wedding in 2010 had 235 guests, she said.

Office manager Sophie Aik­man said 2010 also brought an increase in weddings at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp.

“It was really good for us. … This year was definitely a stronger year than last year,” Aikman said. “We had people from all over — we had locals, we had people from abroad, we had people from different states.”

The Routt County Clerk and Recorder’s Office reported selling 254 marriage licenses in 2010, as of early Thursday. That number is slightly below the office’s average for the past six years, perhaps supporting the idea that Routt County’s rumored increase in weddings comes from business from outside its borders. To get married in Colorado, couples must buy a marriage license in Colorado. But that license can be used anywhere in the state, providing opportunities for Front Range couples, for example, to buy a license at home before a ceremony in the mountains.

The inverse, of course, also could be true — some of the licenses sold in Routt County could be tied to ceremonies performed elsewhere, and growth potential for local wedding-related industries can be difficult to track.

But the appeal and economic potential of destination weddings is not lost on Sandy Evans Hall, executive vice president of the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association. She said the Chamber features wedding information on its website and in all of its “collateral material,” such as marketing brochures, and encourages lodging properties to do the same.

“I think we are seeing more of the destination-type weddings come here,” Evans Hall said. “I see it as a real opportunity for us in the future to go after that type of business.”

Wedding-related advertising could increase in 2011, she said.

Local interest in the industry was clear at the Chamber’s wedding expo in October. That event was popular enough to require an additional tent outside the Depot Art Center on 13th Street to accommodate an overflow of participants.

“We had a significantly larger number of booths from local businesses, and I would say our attendance to the event also increased significantly,” Evans Hall said. “I was very pleased from both standpoints.”

The winter mwonths are prime planning time for summer weddings. Sarah Fox, vice president of Fox Construction, said she called in November 2009 to reserve a wedding date at the top of the gondola at Steamboat Ski Area. She was able to secure Sept. 18, 2010 — a date that now is her anniversary — but said Thunderhead was almost entirely booked when she called, about 10 months in advance.

“We had a lot of people booking a lot earlier,” Perry-Mansfield’s Aikman said.

Aikman said that trend is continuing in the new year.

This year “is looking really strong, and we’ve had a lot of people booking early,” she said.

Grannis took a more moderate tone. She said although most of her summer 2010 weddings were booked by December 2009, things are moving a little slower this year and 2011 “is just starting to pick up.”

Grannis said in mid-December that she had about 16 weddings on the books and expected reservations to increase in January and February. She already was heavily booked for July.

“I think it’s still going to be a good summer,” Grannis said.