Katie & Frank

Ceremony Location: North Congregational Church, Farmington Hills

Reception Location: Dearborn Inn

Wedding Colors: Navy Blue, Light Blue, Ivory

# Guests: 130

Emergency Kit Items Used: Absolutely none! A first!

Talk about perfect weather this day - wow! For November, it was sunny, mild & just all-around a gorgeous day for a wedding! I know I often start my blogs with how the weather was, but this was simply a beautiful day.

My assistant and I started out at Dearborn Inn to check on all of the couple's wedding items and make sure everything was there. Due to another event the Dearborn Inn had going on that day in the Alexandria Ballroom, vendors were unable to get in to the room for any setup until about 5:00 pm. Had it been another venue I might have been worried, but having done two other weddings at Dearborn Inn in recent months, I knew they would do an absolutely fine job of getting the items set up correctly while we were off at the ceremony.

After checking in with the bride and groom, we went to the church to prepare for the ceremony. Katie was amazingly calm and looked beautiful. Hair and makeup for she and her bridesmaids was done by Posh Brides.

Not a lot had to be done at the church as far as decor, it's a large and beautiful church all on its own. Fortino's Flowers had already been in and tied some lovely ivory pew bows with some greenery, and placed some floral pieces on the candelabras at the altar. The ceremony went off beautifully with the church's organist Kim Marlinga and Rev. Mark Jensen.

And, I was absolutely right about Dearborn Inn. We arrived after the ceremony to find that all items had been placed as we had specified. Katie's favors were small tins of chocolate-covered dried cherries; she also had place cards, some wonderful framed photos of her and Frank's parents' and grandparents' weddings (this is a personal favorite thing of mine to see, I looove looking at old wedding photos), toasting flutes, cake server, table numbers, personalized stir sticks for the bar and cocktail napkins. Fortino's Flowers had also been in and did a beautiful job with florals for the centerpieces, cake, and head table. We also brought the candelabra flowers back from the ceremony and placed them on the head table. The cake was done by Pastry Palace and chair covers and cocktail table linens by Affordable Elegance. Everything looked just gorgeous!

Cocktail hour began in the ballroom lobby with ceremony organist Kim now playing the beautiful piano Dearborn Inn has. Guests enjoyed a rather nice spread of hot and cold choices and of course, cocktails.

The Alexandria Ballroom was then opened to the guests and a little while later the bridal party made their grand entrance. Music and MC was done by The G-Daddy's. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely adore live music! And yes, I also realize that this day was not about me (haha) but of course I enjoyed the band. The G-Daddy's did a terrific job with appropriate music for dinner and all of the special dances, and great live music later on with the dance floor overflowing a bit most of the night!

Special thanks to Joan Verla at Dearborn Inn; she was wonderful and extremely helpful. As always, Dearborn Inn did an absolutely professional job. I am a bit sad that I do not yet have any 2010 brides with this venue. We also thoroughlly enjoyed working with photographer Duane Orris of Orris Photography and his 2 assistants.

Katie, Frank and their entire bridal party were so good to us and fun to talk to and work with. Congratulations Katie & Frank, we hope you are having a fabulous time in Hawaii!