Our Wedding Weekend

Good morning beautiful people! Yesterday we received our wedding photos and I looked through them for only about 3 hours last night. They are STUNNING! It made me think about how much of a dream come true in every single way our wedding weekend was. If you’re like me, you have an incredibly extensive wedding Pinterest board and a big love for sappy love photos, videos, quotes, the whole shebang. Our wedding day really lived up to it all, and we are so incredibly grateful for everyone who helped us make it happen!

Tyler and I grew up in the small Northern Michigan town of Traverse City that has somehow become a major summer vacation destination. Although, I can definitely see how. It’s like the carribean of the midwest, if you can picture that!

I wanted to put together a little roundup of all of the vendors that helped us turn our dream into a magical reality for anyone looking to get married in Northern Michigan. Or if you really are like me and just love to look at all the wedding things in general!

I’m going to be doing a few posts about our wedding, from our gifts to each other, to the details like decor and invitations, and also picking out my wedding “look.”

This post is dedicated to the weekend as a whole!

+Bringing my Pinterest board to life: Juniper and Lace Events

We got off the phone after a referral, she asked for my pinterest board, and it was wedding planner soulmate at first look. That was dumb, but you catch my drift. We hired Stacy and Emily from Juniper and Lace Events for weekend coordination plus design. Stacy took my vision of romantic and traditional with a small side of Air Force Pilot and ran with it. From all white and gold everything, to a dessert table with cookies floating on clouds with paper airplanes in them, she knocked it out of the park. Emily was SO attentive the ENTIRE weekend. From rehearsal all the way through Sunday brunch, I’m convinced she’s the reason it all went so smoothly. If a coordinator/designer/planner is in your budget DEFINITELY give them a call. If it’s not in the budget, make some shifts because I promise you it was the best dollar we spent. It was more than $1, but you’re pickin’ up what I’m layin’ down. If I ever plan any sort of event ever again, in Michigan or not, you bet I’ll be calling these women.

+Next we have the transformers: sensational Events.

And by transformers I mean decorators. Stacy from Juniper and Lace works alongside those at Sensational Events which is how we found them. I’ll be honest, I’m not going to say I picked my venue for it’s aesthetics ...if you catch my drift. The drapery from Sensational Events was absolutely stunning. We draped the entire ballroom as well as the entryway. It was like when Paolo gave Mia a makeover in the Princess Diaries, exactly like that actually. Beautiful white draping and chandeliers can transform anything.

Which brings me to the event itself.

+The Rehearsal Dinner Venue: Mari Vineyards

Mari Vineyards holds a very special place in our hearts. Mari is where we went on our first “official” date once we were boyfriend and girlfriend, and it was where Tyler proposed. We originally wanted our reception here, but they only hold around 100 people if I remember correctly. And, well, Tyler’s guest list alone had 200 people on it so there’s that. Rehearsal dinner was the next best thing!

Beginning the dinner celebration with an extravagant charcuterie selection and wine pairing, wedding weekend was off to a perfect start! With dinner served on the outdoor patio on the second floor overlooking the vineyard and Grand Traverse Bay, it was everything we dreamed of.

+Our little country church: Saint Joseph Church

I grew up going to Saint Joe’s on the peninsula since I was a little girl. Little did I know growing up that our weekly Sunday church was actually the most gorgeous place to get married. Set in the middle of a vineyard, a white steeple church, with a beautiful romantic country feel inside. It’s become a wedding destination and I can absolutely understand why. If you’re looking to get married here, call quickly because they book up fast!

It actually made for grabbing extended family photos really easy with the vineyard photo backdrop included. All of my cousins with infants and toddlers enjoyed that part.

+The genius behind the lense: Scarlett Peidmonte from Old Mission Weddings

Scarlett was our photographer for both the wedding and our engagement shoot. She actually took Tyler’s high school senior pictures as well! And basically all of my sports pictures in high school. Can you tell Traverse City is a small town yet?

Her photography is beautiful, but what stuck with us the most was how attentive she was. She was sure to grab us for all of the perfect shots, beautiful sunset photos, and captured everything we could ever want to remember in the future. She stayed with us into the night, capturing our friends and family, and was such a blessing in making this magical wedding weekend last forever.

We took photos at The Boathouse Restaurant at the end of the peninsula, Chateau Grand Traverse, and Saint Francis High School (I mean, we had to).

+The Wedding Party Trolley

Cutest. Wedding. Trolley. Ever. Also makes for adorable photos. Need I say more?

+Bring the memories to life: Timeless Media Productions

We met with Samantha from Timeless Media Productions a couple weeks after our engagement and went with them right out of the gate. They have so many packages to capture exactly what you’re looking for. We opted for a custom package to capture the ceremony, aerial footage, the venue, and into the speeches portion of the reception. We chose to do our first dance immediately after being introduced, and went straight into the speeches. We had a lot of heavy appetizers first, so our guests weren’t too hangry!

+The Where: The Grand Traverse Country Club

The Country Club went above and beyond to make us happy. From food, to service, it was gorgeous! Wait...the FOOD. My Lord. The food was amazing, not that I got to enjoy any of it myself (what they say is so real), but when we did our tasting...WOW. Don’t worry, our friends and family told us they agreed!!

We chose appetizers from our heritage. I am French, Swedish, and Polish. So for my family’s side we had brie and raspberry filled pastries, potato pancakes topped with smoked salmon and cream cheese, and pierogies. Wow I’m getting hungry just writing this. Tyler is Lebanese and German. We had Fataya, and pretzels with mustard for his side of heritage.

For entrees we had a dual plate with a filet mignon, broccoli stuffed chicken, potato gratin, and brussel sprouts. For dessert we opted for a two layer cake alongside a dessert table full of little desserts and, drum roll please, an ice cream bar. Definitely a crowd pleaser!

Another piece that the Country Club was so sweet to help us bring to life was our “Drink of the Hour” menu as well as our signature drinks! Our signature drinks were passed around when the guests arrived to the reception and our drink of the hour menu was for after the reception began It was just a menu we had sitting on the bar, and for each hour we had a special drink. Ours were:

DyTy - MaiTai

Dirty Diana - it’s an actual drink lucky me lol

The Honeymoon - Sex on the Beach (awkward but also punny)

The Aviator - Also an actual drink

The Mock 2 - Long Island

A few other fun details we loved were a cigar bar as well as a Cigar bar and a photo-booth that looked like a magic mirror. The guests who took photos in the photo-booth put a copy of their photos in a little scrapbook and wrote next to it a date for Tyler and I. We loved it!

+Closing Time

We ended the weekend with brunch for our out of town guests (almost everyone) at our home on Sunday morning. Emily picked up all of our food, brought it, plated it, picked up during and after...do I still have to convince you that they’re amazing? If you can, hosting brunch the Sunday after is such a great touch and finish to the weekend. When they say you don’t have time to talk to everyone the night of...they really mean it. We were so grateful to have the chance to hang out with the people so close to us after coming so far to celebrate our magical day with us! The benefits of having your wedding on a holiday weekend include your guests making it a long weekend for themselves if they’re traveling to you! This is actually my number 1-10 tip on planning a military wedding, but that’s another blog for another day (which is actually on my list, stay tuned!).

And those are the big details. It was absolutely gorgeous in every way.