I took a beautiful carriage from the Island House Hotel to the Church with my parents and bridesmaids. It was a memorable experience as you drive down main street and unknown people shout their well wishes to you, little girls shout that you look like a princess and I felt like I was the queen of the Rose Parade with her court. The same carriage with the the top up after the ceremony provide my husband and I a tour of the island after the ceremony. (because it started to rain about 20 minutes after the ceremony – but had been beautiful and sunny both before, during and immediately after the ceremony). Along with us was the better behaved step-son because no one remembered to have him go back with them to the reception. We had all of our guests taken from the Church back to the hotel by carriage which we provided. My stepson should have been on one of those carriages, I am not sure how he got left behind. What should have been a romantic moment with my husband turned out not to be. Between family, friends and two wedding planners you think someone could have taken him, but I think the problem was that his brother was such trouble making a scene that everyone was focused on him.

No complaints. It took longer to pick out all of the chair covers, linens, sashes and such than I expected. They were set up beautifully at the reception, but by the end of the night the chair covers were slipping off the chairs.

Since we had a destination wedding, we invited all of our guests to join us for our rehearsal dinner and rented the entire restaurant. We had appetizer buffets set up upon arrival, pitchers of margaritas and a variety of entrees for our guests to choose from. It was a great way for us to spend time with our friends and family in an informal setting and for our friends and family to meet and mingle so they would have a chance to meet and make the reception itself more fun. As the bride, I was the first to leave, but I understand that our group ended up staying very late and there were a few people not feeling so good the next day due to all of the fun they had. I guess it was a good thing our wedding was in the afternoon!

We had a photographer at the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner in addition to two photographers the day of the wedding. Jim and his assistant were easy to work with and were familiar with Mackinac Island weddings. We had a carriage ride after the ceremony, but weren’t able to have the photographer with us because it was raining and we wouldn’t have had any good shots. Jim was patient with me as it took me a long time to select the photos that would ultimately be in our albums. The final result is one that will be a family heirloom for generations to come.

We selected a national chain since we had to meet needs from California to Virginia. My husband purchased his tux (even though he already had two others) and let his brother have the free tux rental. My step-sons were a bit of a nightmare putting up a big fight over wearing the tuxes, then ended up losing some pieces, but Men’s Wearhouse was great and didn’t charge us any extra.

I had custom jewelry made for my bridesmaids, necklaces and earrings at Miner's Den. My engagement ring was designed and made by a jeweler my mother has had for over 25 years who lives in Arizona, so we didn't use Miner's Den for that. I was perfectly happy with the service Miner's Den provided for the other jewelry items.

I probably couldn’t have done as well on my own, but the woman Dottie Ottman was the woman who helped the most when we were on the Island. I think I would have preferred having Dottie during the whole planning process. My planner did make a few mistakes, the biggest one being not having the Veranda at the hotel booked for prior to the reception. I had to threaten The Island House that I would move my wedding reception to the Grand Hotel in order to have the mistake corrected. This was literally, three days before my wedding and causing me more stress than you can imagine. This combined with the constant drama surrounding my eldest step-son almost caused me to simply call the wedding off.


I purchased my invitations and save-the-dates through The Wedding Connection, as well. The wedding invitations were gorgeous, although they were also pretty expensive. The first time they were shipped to me, the envelopes had the wrong liner. They were supposed to have pale blue velvet, but had a thin wispy sheet that reminded me of a dryer sheet. I guess I ordered at the time the catalogues were being changed and so the numbers were the same and the wrong liner was used. Fortunately, because I ordered through my wedding consultant, there was no additional charge to have the correct envelopes printed/prepared/shipped. One of my guests had our invitation beautifully framed as our gift. It is hung on a wall in our bedroom.

The save the date cards were cute and original. You had to scratch off silver hearts to uncover the dates. In hindsight, I probably would have preferred just calling friends and family because it just seemed like an extra step that I didn’t need.

I made our flight (using Kayak.com) and lodging reservations myself. We stayed at an RCI timeshare resort in Malaga, Spain. It was a great place to honeymoon. We also visited Gibralter and Morocco. We would both love to go back and spend more time in the south of Spain as well as Morocco. We had a view of the Mediterranean from our room, would have our coffee on a large balcony (corner room) and could see the coast of Africa at sunrise. It was magical. Lots of fun little places to walk and dine. Definitely take guided tours, as we saw so much and I was terrified on the narrow winding streets when we rented a car and my husband was driving. Don’t miss visiting Alhambra. Weather problems did make the flight getting to Spain a lot longer than we expected – there are only two flights per day from London, so when we missed our morning connection we had 12 hours in Heathrow until the next flight. Also, Spain is like Mexico – don’t drink the water – bottled water only.


 I had my regular stylist join me at my wedding. After all, stylists are more than just service providers, they are often our friends and confidants. I was so happy to have Luna, her boyfriend and son at my wedding. She did a great job on my hair.

Weber’s floral was extremely helpful in the floral selection, had no problems with delivery (remember everything has to be brought over on the ferries) and was very knowledgeable about our wedding venues.

We had a gorgeous wreath hung on the door at the church (I remember the florist knew some particulars about what kind of attachment could be used at the Little Stone Church) containing hydrangea, pale pink Vivaldi roses, Eskimo roses, tulips, bella donna delphinium, maidenhair fern, lemon leaf and bleeding hearts. I also recall that we had peonies in the wreath.

My bouquet was hand tied with white satin ribbon and crystals with a square knot on the bottom and included Virginia roses, Eskimo roses, white tulips, white hydrangeas, stephanotis and pale pink peonies accented with pale pink Vivaldi roses. My bridesmaids/maid of honor had royal blue dresses and their bouquets were also hand tied in white satin with a square knot, but contained darker pink tulips, light blue bella donna delphinium, white stock, accented with deep blue volkerfrieden delphium.

The boutonnieres were Eskimo roses accented with eucalyptus and volkerfrieden delphinium. Corsages were pale pink sweetheart roses.

We had found and purchased beautiful vases that each held three blossoms at a Mikasa outlet. These allowed for easy conversation between guests and looked beautiful. Each vase held either three white roses, three pink or three white tulips, or three light pink or dark pink large gerbera daisies