Wedding at Bowers Harbor Inn

On the Western shoreline on Old Mission Peninsula you will find Bowers Harbor Inn overlooking Grand Traverse Bay. Northern Michigan has so many wonderful wedding venues and Bowers Harbor is one of our favorites.

Bowers Harbor Inn which was once a private home is a wonderful restaurant that also has its own brewery on site. This summer the Inn opened its new reception hall on the grounds. The Inn has a beautiful front lawn with a low stone wall that overlooks the water and is shaded by a multitude of tall trees.

Ali, who is from Texas, met Eric who is a native of Michigan while attending Michigan State University. After being a couple for 5 years, Eric took Ali for a visit to his grandmother’s house. It was a place that Eric always enjoyed visiting to as a child. It was here on a stone wall that he proposed to Ali. Ali said yes and a year later she posed by another stone wall as a beautiful bride.

With Eric’s family in Michigan and Ali’s family spread out over the country, the couple decided on a destination wedding in Northern Michigan. The bride knew she wanted an outdoor wedding near the water so she and her mother took a trip to Northern Michigan to scout out different locations for a wedding. When they got to Bowers Harbor Inn she fell in love with it and knew from the first sight, “this is where I want my wedding.”

In late July this past summer the guests gathered on the wooded front lawn while the ladies put on their finishing touches upstairs in the Inn. When the time for the ceremony finally arrived, Ali and her father made a grand entrance down the walkway to join Eric. The couple exchanged vows with the shimmering waters of Bowers Harbor in background.

For a special touch, Ali’s brother became ordained so he could perform the ceremony. For both Ali and Eric, it made it much more personal to have someone they were close to perform the ceremony rather than a stranger.

After the ceremony, the newlyweds and their guests enjoyed cocktails and hor d’ oeuvres on the Inns front lawn patio area. Soon they were ready to move to Bowers Harbor’s lovely new reception hall located on the back lawn.

Ali comment on how helpful the staff was at bowers harbor. “They were all so great. Everything was just perfect! ” The weather was awesome. I could not have asked for more”

Thanks to Ali and Eric for allowing us to be a part of their special day!

Wedding at Bowers Harbor Inn, Traverse City

Traverse City Wedding

Traverse City Wedding Reception

Wedding Photography by Purcell Photography

Bay Area Video wins 1st place - Best Videographer in Northern Michigan

Wedding Video in Northern Michigan!

www.bayareaweddingfilms.com

Thank you so much for filming our destination wedding and putting together such an incredible full length DVD and shorter highlight version of it for us to show at our reception back home.  So many people came to us and commented on how perfectly they could hear everything and how it made them feel like they were actually at the wedding.  We have watched it over twenty times now with different friends and family members and everytime we are reminded of how special our wedding was and we get flooded with memories of that day. 
The video was so impressive that many friends of ours who are engaged asked how far you travel to work!  We have also had many friends and family members ask for copies of the DVD for them to have at home. Most importantly, thank you for working with us to accomodate all the preferences we had and for fitting our time schedule. You truly cared about all the different aspects that were important to us, and we are extremely grateful for that.  We have been recommending that our friends get married in Northern Michigan just so that they can hire you and also get such a special and professionaly done video as we did.  It was really nice meeting you and thanks for all your work!      From Illinois

Fall Wedding at Castle Farms

We all know that weddings can be stressful. That is why having your wedding at a venue such as Castle Farms near Charlevoix is such a great stress reliever. A bride as a variety of options for the ceremony to ensure that her wedding vision is fulfilled.

Purcell Photography's bride Angela on October 18th choose right the beginning to hold her fall wedding ceremony indoors in the Kings Great Hall. Thus, any worry about the weather was eliminated. It did turn out to be a pleasant day, so we were still able to use the garden areas around the Castle for many of our photos as well.

Angela and Brian were a fantastic couple to work with and it was a pleasure to be a part of their special day. Angela had a bubbly personality and Brian easy going and always grinning. We also need to say something about the parents. You could tell how very happy and excited they all were about the union of these two kids. Indeed, after the ceremony the parents walked down the aisle and once in the lobby had one great big group hug!

The wedding guests enjoyed a lovley reception held in the kings great Roon. With delicious food, great music, and good company, it was easy to see that everyone was having a great time at the Castle.

Purcell Photography wishes the best Angie and Brian

Castle Farms, Charlevoix,MI

Wedding at Castle Farms, Charlevoix

Weddings at Castle Farms

Castle Farms, Charlevoix

Bay Area Video Launches New Website

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Grand Traverse Resort and Spa....Again

On September 6 Purcell Photography was back at one of our favorite venues.

The Pavillion Tent at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa was the ceremony site for Luke and Laura (you remember their soap opera don't you? :-)

It was a lovely day and our bride was lovely as well. It is so nice to be at the Resort because of all the different photo opportunities. We took full advantage of this before and after the ceremony going around to all our favorite spots.

The Pavillion which is a covered area behind the Resort was where the ceremony was held and the officiant was the groom's brother. It certainly added a nice touch because he was able to personalize the ceremony.

It was a gorgeous evening and after dinner our couple agreed we should take more pictures around the resort, thus we got some great shots during the "golden time" just prior to sunset.

Laura and Luke were great to work with and ended up with many awesome photos.

Traverse City Wedding Photographer wishes them all the best!!!!

Wedding at Traverse City Resort and Spa

It was a beautiful July 26th in Traverse City, Michigan. Mike and Renee had chosen the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa to host their wedding and Purcell Photography to record their memories.

Our couple choose our Storybook package which features unlimited time for photo coverage which we love because we get to experience the entire event and have a front row seat as the day unfolds.

We first caught up to our lovely bride at the Spa, as she and the ladies of the wedding were getting their hair done and enjoyed a little bit of pampering before the day got too hectic. The men, of course, were out playing golf!

We love working at the resort. It offers us so many wonderful options for memorable photos. We were able to take some spectacular bridal portraits of Renee overlooking the greens of the golf course with the tower of the resort in the background.

Mike and Renee choose the resorts beach setting, The Shores, located on the east arm of Grand Traverse Bay, for their outdoor ceremony.

Back at the main resort the reception was held in The Michigan Room. After dinner as the sun began to set, we took our couple out for some fun shots with their wedding party. We then took advantage of the beautiful evening to get romantic shots of Mike and Renee.

We should note that once the celebration started, it STARTED! It is suffice to say the Renee and Mike and their friends take their partying seriously...unfortunately for our BLOG we had to save the best reception photos for our couple's Flush Mount album.

Everyone had a great time and so did we.

We at Purcell Photography wish the very best to our wonderful couple.