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!

Kristin & Christopher

Ceremony Location: St Aidan Catholic Church

Reception Location: Dearborn Inn

Colors: Hot pink, light pink, black, silver

# Guests: 140

Emergency Kit Items Used: 2 Advil :)

Well what more can I say here ~ Kris and Chris are a gorgeous couple and soooooo nice. The day was sunny and bright for the most part, and by the time it rained, the reception was already in full swing so no worries!

Emerald City was working hard when I arrived and I must say, they really do a beautiful job. EC had provided and set up full-length table linen, chargers, floral centerpieces complete with scattered gems for some sparkle, table numbers, head table swag, pink uplighting, and a full pink rose on each place setting. I was just in the same ballroom at Dearborn Inn two weeks prior and it looked completely different! The uplighting really adds to the atmosphere and makes me wish I'd done some at my own!

Kris had a large floor monogram (http://www.rightonthewalls.com/) that nearly gave me a heart attack, but luckily one of the kind Emerald City workers helped me get it down there. Thanks so much guys!! She also had a framed seating chart done by Kristie at So In Love Invitations, a photo guest book, the photo card box (http://www.theperfectcardbox.com/) some really pretty DIY blinged-out toasting flutes for the bridal party (on top of some GORGEOUS Swarovski ones for the bride & groom), and place cards with cute little logos I believe she also had Kristie do. These logos determined what plate each guest was to have for dinner and they were so cute. I overheard quite a few people, including the DI wait staff, commenting on them.

Again, the Dearborn Inn staff was thorough and professional as always. They don't miss a beat. Everything ran smoothly and on time. The only minor snag of the evening was in regards to the hired cocktail hour pianist; hopefully the company who was to provide them will compensate and resolve the issue as needed.

Thanks to Kris's mom, she was a real doll ~ and also to Ed and Adrienne from Memories of Yesterday Video (http://www.memoriesofyesterdayvideo.com/), it was SO nice working with then, they were terrific and SO nice to talk to! Families and vendors like them are part of the reason I LOVE doing this! Also part of the "team" that night were Matt Candela (another great DJ from Mike Staff Productions) and photographer Jason Samkowiak (some pro photos now located here). Thank you, thank you, thank you! The lovely bride and groom seemed SUPER happy with everyone.

Congratulations Kris & Chris, have FUN FUN FUN at Sandals Whitehouse in Jamaica!! I wish I could sneak in your suitcases! ;-)

Jane & Craig

Ceremony & Reception Location: Dearborn Inn

Wedding Color: Clover Green

Guests: 140

Emergency Kit Items Used: Clear nail polish, on myself, I ran my nylons!!

Some pro photo peeks located here.

Jane & Craig were set to get married outdoors on the Dearborn Inn grounds by the gazebo, and she was worried about rain. What a beautiful day it turned out to be, no rain at all! Dearborn Inn has beautiful grounds and gardens, and a terrific area for photos with all of the replica homes that surround the gazebo area. For the ceremony, we set up shepherd's hooks down the aisle, and hung Jane's DIY pommanders from them. I had a bit of trouble getting some in to the ground in some areas, they just wouldn't budge. But, after some rearranging, I finally got them to line up fairly well, though some just refused to go in to the ground any further. I guess I am a little nutty about things lining up just right sometimes!

Jane had a very extensive candy buffet, lots of containers! This took a majority of the time to set up and I was glad we had plenty of time. Jane had made it very easy by putting the candy she wanted in each container IN the actual container, but bagged so it would not fly loose and spill in the storage boxes. Ladies, if you do this, it's SO HELPFUL and makes the candy buffet set-up so much easier for me (much appreciated!), but you might want to pack some extra stuffing material to be used later when it's time to pack the containers back up. I had re-bagged the candy at the end of the night but was lacking stuffing material to put inside the containers later...because, of course, the candy stock was significantly depleted through the night :-)

People seemed to have a blast with the candy buffet though, the candy cigarettes were snatched up quickly! "Retro" candy seems to bring back a memory of childhood in some, and it's fun to watch people enjoying something so much.

Also for the decor, Jane had purchased some thundersticks at the last minute, an idea she had gotten that very week from another bride. To be quite honest, I wasn't exactly sure what "thundersticks" were!! Ah, those noise-makers that are popular at sports events, got it! (I am not a huge sports event attendee, obviously!) A set of thundersticks were criss-crossed on each guest chair and a little note of directions for them was placed on each place setting. Upon bride and groom arrival, the guests made lots of noise! Very neat idea, I can see this becoming a very popular trend when others catch on.

Dearborn Inn really has their ducks in a row when it comes to hospitality. There was a banquet captain in the room all night and also the booking manager was there until around 10:00 p.m. In a case like this, I prefer to allow them to do what they do best while still remain on-hand "just in case", but DI truly needed no "babysitting". They coordinated all of the events of the night as needed and my assistance at the reception was limited / not as neccessary. My time after dinner was filled by replenishing the candy buffet and watching guests enjoy their evening. A coney hot dog station was rolled out in the bar area later which people seemed very excited about.

The other vendors of the night had great personalities and were easy to talk to: Rafael of Memories Forever, Kris of Kreativ Imaging and his really sweet assistant, and Ron of Disc Jockey Productions.

Jane & Craig, I hope you are having a wonderful time in Jamaica at Sandals Dunn's River! This is the same resort we went to in April and we didn't want to come home! Congratulations!