One year later, Our Wedding Celebration
Wow, this was truly the week of a lifetime. So incredibly special. The type of memory it is impossible to put into words. I am FOREVER grateful for these photos, memories, and time together with everyone we love celebrating our marriage. We are back in Grand Haven one year later as a family (missing the rest of the Camp Bralle crew,) and reliving all of the sweet memories. This is the longest blog post ever, but the most fun for me to write and relive <3
What is Camp Bralle you may ask?
Brad and I got married on January 8th, 2019 in Tulum, Mexico with our parents, siblings, and the pastor who married us. We had a very specific vision for our wedding that included beach, intimacy, and a vacation for all. We like to party and celebrate, that’s for sure- but we didn’t want our wedding day to feel like a party that comes and goes and takes away from the real reason for the celebration. It came together perfectly and highly recommend an intimate wedding followed by a party with friends (funny how many people are being forced into this choice lately,) and it will be the BEST day! We felt so present, stress free, and in the moment on the day of our wedding and am most thankful for that. I will do a blog post recapping our wedding as well (because I started this blog just recently.)
So begins where Camp Bralle was born! We have spent summers as a family in Grand Haven, Michigan since I was a baby. 10 years ago my parents bought a house here and it has been our happy place since. Funny enough, the first Summer Brad and I started dating- we were the first to sleep in the house on air mattresses on the living room floor. It is a special place to all of us, Brad included. We loved the idea of sharing this personal paradise with all of our people by hosting our wedding reception here in Grand Haven.
We knew we wanted it to be casual, relaxed, and like a good American Summer backyard party. With minimal research, I came across Camp Blodgett as an option for a venue. This place ROCKS. I love its simplicity, charm, and beachfront property. They operate as a kids summer camp during the week and a wedding venue on the weekends. The weddings help fund the Summer camp, so great! I went and looked at it by myself the first time. Took a few photos and videos, sent them to Brad and he quickly replied, “YEP that’s it!” They had 4th of July weekend available, which sounded like an absolute blast (and gave us a few extra days to draw out the party duh) so we locked in Friday, July 5th.
There was a SHIT ton of planning that went into our wedding events. Luckily, both Brad and I are natural planners (Brad also does it for work) so that helped to ease the process. But there were hands down many fights, meltdowns, etc. Looking back now- ALL WORTH IT!
Grand Haven is a relatively small town with limited options for catering, flowers, etc. which made decision making much easier. You get what you get. I also looked to any blog posts I could find, IG accounts, and neighbors for recommendations. I hope this blog post will be helpful to someone out there in their research for a West MI wedding. Happy to answer any questions for soon-to be brides!
Once we had our guest list and a rough number of attendees, we secured as many houses on my parents block as we could. We paired friends from like places together and put down a deposit. We loved the idea of all of our friends and family being next door neighbors for the long weekend. It was indeed AN ABSOLUTE BLAST.
So the short answer to my questions above is….My dad started calling Brad and I, Bralle years ago. Once we landed on Camp Blodgett as a party venue and decided to make a long weekend out of it, someone threw out Camp Bralle and it stuck. We really went for it with this theme lol…invites, hats, coozies, custom solo cups, the whole gamut.
My amazingly talented sister, Gabi designed our invites (and all other swag.) We were THRILLED with how they turned out. She nailed it with exactly what we had in mind.
I felt like a little kid on Christmas waking up every morning of this week with my best friends two houses down and all of our people in one place. So thankful for my amazing and patient family for all of their help pulling this together. It was a group effort indeed and meant the world to Brad and I to see it come alive. See below for some of my favorite photos from the days leading up to the party!
Moving onto the main event…it was a marathon y’all. So much fun every step of the way, if I do say so myself! I want to give a HUGE shoutout to our photographer, Abbey Moore. She grew up in Grand Haven and ALSO got married at Camp Blodgett so was a huge help with recommendations. She captured our celebration in exactly the light we had hoped. I wanted very few staged pics for this day and to capture all the raw, candid moments. Our visions were aligned and she exceeded our expectations. So happy to be sharing all of these photos here today.
Starting out with some detail shots of our wonderful home while getting ready for the party. My sweet friend, Sarah kindly offered to do my makeup and ended up helping out with everyone in the houses hair/makeup as well. Godsend!!!!
We shuttled all of our guests in trolleys to the party and were the last to arrive and get the party started!
Arriving to Camp Blodgett!
We kicked off dancing pretty much right as we arrived and all throughout the night. A local friend in Grand Haven recommended Chris Wiser for music and he formed a small band of friends for some awesome live music. They were fantastic! We did a pre-dinner toast with tequila shots in honor of our Mexico wedding (and love for Tequila) and all took a seat inside.
Flowers are so damn expensive. As much as I LOVE them, it was not worth the money for me. So we did these sweet small stems lining the table and kept it SUPER simple. All white, a few candles, and it was just fine for me. But the FOOD!!!! Very very important for us and it did not disappoint. We used Bar Fly Events for catering and it was veryyyyy good, would highly recommend. They were also so wonderful and accommodating to work with. We had a DIY nacho bar (our fav food) at cocktail hour, a summer salad, tri-color potatoes, grilled Michigan asparagus, California grilled tri-tip (an ode to our CA home,) stuffed peppers as a vegetarian option, and local farm chicken with peaches.
We did long picnic style tables with no seating chart, it was fun to see different friends mingling with each other.
My sisters and both of our Dad’s gave a speech that had the entire room laughing, crying, all the things. We saved these moments for the reception, so it was fun to share with all our friends.
After Dinner, Brad and I shared our first dance to a Dave Matthews song. We hadn’t put much thought into the song we’d dance to at our wedding and were waiting in hopes that an idea would pop up. This is a newer DMB album that Brad had been listening to. He came home one day exclaiming that he thought this may be it. I had never heard it, but he played it for me once, I cried, and yep that was it. We grew up listening to Dave and have seen him live probably 10 times, so this felt right and special for us.
“And now I'm opened up
I am strong and wild
Like a storm out the stars in my blood. And it's all because of you, you my love”
I then danced with my Dad, which is a moment I had thought about since I was a little girl at Daddy Daughter dances. Our Dad is our guiding light in all things in life, the most admirable man. He chose the song Three Little Birds by Bob Marley, as an ode to his ‘three little girls’ and the overall nature of my Dad as a parent.
“Singin’ don’t worry about a thing, ‘cause every little thing is gonna be alright.”
We got some amazing portraits of the two of us at our Wedding in Mexico, but were able to sneak away for a few minutes of the reception as well to get the shots below. SO glad we did, it was the most beautiful night by the beach.
The party carried on into the night with more dancing and sparklers of course!
Not big cake people, so we opted for pie from Grand Traverse Pie Company. It was a hit!
The night ended with an after party with Brad as the DJ and a post bar sprint to the local Gyro spot. It was a blast through and through. Thank you to all who celebrated with us and helped in any capacity to make our dream wedding reception come to life, WE LOVE YOU.
Humongous thank you to our vendors: My dress- Alexis | Shoes- Zara | Venue- Camp Blodgett | Flowers- Truer Design | Rentals- Alpine Rent All| Photographer- Abbey Moore | Music- Chris Wiser | Trolley- Affordable Limo | Day-of wedding planner- Luna Soiree Events | Food/ Catering- Barfly Events | Dessert/Pies- Grand Traverse Pie Company.