At the suggestion of a previous satisfied customer, we found videographer Alan Lockwood. He is based out of Waterford, Michigan. Since we're getting video from referral we didn't do much research into the packages that other videographers offer. However, our friend is still quite pleased with the results of her wedding video.
http://www.lockwoodmediaonline.com/weddings/
Read reminiscence of Waterford, Michigan
Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills allows photography on their grounds. They have some fairly stringent guidelines on what you cannot do. For example, you are not allowed to go inside the buildings at all. Not even to use the bathroom.
If you want full details, download the PDF I received from the Meadow Brook offices.
Meadow Brook Photo Shoot Guidelines
The Henry Ford Museum or Greenfield Village in Dearborn would be super cool places to have a wedding because everybody has been to a hotel wedding. When do you get to go to a museum for a wedding? It would have been especially cool because many of our out of town guests have not been to Michigan more than once or twice, if ever. It would be wedding and vacation entertainment rolled into one convenient package!
You could have the gathering at the museum, Greenfield Village or Lovett Hall. After doing a quick cost comparison for the museum average cost would have roughly the same per person (~$120/pp) including some of the additional fees such as admission ($10-20/pp) for admission into the museum. This would include premium drinks, appetizer setups, dessert, and mid-range entrees. They have interesting museum and Michigan-specific twists like afterglow Coney Dog Bar or Faygo Float Station. Coney Dogs are chili dogs named after the numerous Coney Island restaurants in Southeast Michigan. I don't know why they are all called Coney Islands. Faygo is a Detroit-based soft drink company. Their more unique flavors are Red-pop or Rock and Rye.
I hoped we could figure out a way to do our wedding here but it fell short in a few aspects. First, it is not a hotel. I know our friends would be doing some drinking. I think being at the museum would jeopardize general public safety afterwards because they would either have to drive to a hotel or drive back home. At least having the wedding in a hotel would stop a few of the people from driving. Second, since it is a museum there is less time flexibility. Third, they do not list a vegetarian option in their menus. I know we will have a fair amount of vegetarian guests.
If you're looking for a place to take wedding photos it might be tricky but I would consider taking photos here.
Links:
Michigan Wedding Slavin is a great big list of wedding type stuff around Southeast Michigan. I am not sure if there is any regional bias or if it leans towards Christian American weddings. Nevertheless it has a lot of information packed into a website.
This is a huge list of banquet halls and other facilities as presented by a local DJ in the Southeastern Michigan area. It is a great starting resource just to know what is out there.
http://www.madmanmike.com/halls_banquet_facilities.html
Meadowbrook is a beautiful historic mansion in Rochester Hills, MI. They can accommodate large weddings in their facilities. I personally have not been to a Meadowbrook wedding but I hear that it is very nice.
We hope to go to Meadowbrook for wedding day photography because it is about 15-20 minutes from the Troy Marriott and should have exceptional scenery. I hope there isn't another wedding over there to prevent us from taking pictures.
Be wary of their catering restrictions if you want ethnic cuisine at your wedding. Meadowbrook does not allow outside caterers. My parents went to an Indian wedding at Meadowbrook that had bad Indian food (curry, vegetarian dishes, etc.) because it was prepared by the in-house Meadowbrook staff who made the dishes from recipes given to them. Without the proper training or familiarity with a cuisine, how could they expect to replicate authentic Indian food? I'm sure they do a great job with more familiar Western cuisines like Italian or French.
We are going to have our wedding at Troy Marriott because the Marriott can handle a fairly large wedding. It meets our criteria. We need a venue that could host about 300-350 people because my parents want to invite a lot of friends and colleagues in addition to our already large family.
For large weddings around Dearborn, Michigan you might also consider these venues.
Resources:
We set a few basic essential goals for the wedding.
My parents live in Dearborn. My fiancee's mother lives in Rochester Hills. To keep things convenient for our guests and ourselves we decided the wedding should be held within a short drive of either house. By doing so we could set up a base of operations and reduce travel logistics getting to the wedding location. This also helps because at least traveling guests could stay at our family homes.
Another major convenience that I want is to have the ceremony, reception, and banquet all in the same venue. Doing so eliminates the hassle of working with multiple venues (I.E. a church AND a banquet hall) and simplifies the logistics for all guests who would otherwise (1) go to wedding at church, then (2) wait for a few hours before the reception, then (3) find the reception location and park. We've reduced it to 1 simple step: go to the wedding before or after the ceremony and wait to be fed.
We decided to keep things indoors. Although the summer is beautiful and it makes for great scenery Michigan weather is notoriously unpredictable. A single day could see sunshine in the morning, thunderstorm or tornado in the afternoon, followed by stargazing on a clear evening. It can also be uncomfortably hot and humid in the summer which I personally hate. Oh yeah, and there are shitloads of mosquitos in the summer, too.
I enjoy modest things. Sure, I like to blow some money on new cars and fancy new gadgets but beyond that I don't generally do things over-the-top. I rarely spend more than $50 on shoes or clothes, $10 haircuts, I eat at home most nights, and so forth. In that vein, I don't see the need for fire jugglers or white doves at a wedding. We're going to be inauspicious and probably less than memorable to 70% of our guests.
I would have preferred to keep the number of guests in the 100-200 range but I have a large extended family and this will be the only wedding that my parents will be able to have in Michigan because my brothers are married or will be marrying in California. With this being the case, my parents would like at least to invite their friends and colleagues to reciprocate weddings that they have been invited to in the past 20 some years. That puts the head count firmly in the 320+ people range. It's not giant per se but it's definitely enough people where I only know 30-40% of the attendees.
Cabo San Lucas was a fun place to visit. For a honeymoon I would probably avoid the downtown hotels and stay out in the mega-resorts located on the beach between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. There are a number of giant resorts out there that cater to families and couples.