First of all, I have to say Congrats to Lori and Bryce on yours last week! It looks like you guys had a total blast! We are so happy for you! We just got back and I am excitedly getting our pictures posted for all to see! Well, the way this all came about took a while. We SO wanted it to be a special one since it was out tenth. We had considered many options. Most of my ideas were much too expensive (i.e. french riviera, amalfi coast...) to be realistic, but anything else seemed boring. So I was at a loss as to what we should do for this special occasion. Last month as I was thumbing through my copy of Architectural Digest magazine, I saw this travel article about Macinac (pronounced Mack-in-aw) Island, where we went on our Honeymoon. They advertised an Antique and Design Fall festival put on by a famous Interior Designer named Carlton Varney. He owns a Design firm in NYC that was once owned by Dorothy Draper, who in the first half of this past century was as famous or more than Martha Stewart is today. Anyway, he is the one who has decorated the Famous Grand Hotel which is on Macinac Island and we had dreamt of staying there on our FIRST honeymoon- but being the college students we were-- well...it really was not in the BUDGET! SOOOOO, as you all know that was like a sign from above when I saw the article. I knew that would be the perfect Anniversary/2nd Honeymoon trip for us! And in a reachable budget for us too! So that's how it came about. We took a ferry over, and you can see how pretty the sun was as it sparkled on the water. The island has a no motorized vehicles rule, so once you get there you have the choices of walking, biking, riding a horse, or getting a horse and carriage ride, which is what we did to get to the hotel. The horses went so slow we could have walked faster though! I have no idea why but I am having trouble posting my pictures so I will have to do the rest in the morning.
The Grand Hotel really is just as amazing as it looks in the pictures. If you have seen the movie "Somewhere In Time" it's all in that movie. But it's not just the grandiose nature of the structure, which is both astounding and beautiful, it is the amazing way they take care of you when you are there! We felt like we had virtually no reason to ever leave the hotel! They had AMAZING food- like 5 star! We ate TOO much, and then after 6pm they require the "ladies"to be wearing skirts or dresses, and the "gentlemen"to have suits and ties on! It's so old-fashioned and fun! The dining room was amazingly huge and formal, with a live orchestra that played every night during dinner, followed by a harpist after dinner in the parlor, which was finished off by a big band that played in the ballroom and we danced every night until 11:30 pm! It was my dream! We heard Mr. Varney speak one day, and we also went to a talk on Art and antique restoration which was really interesting. There was some really pretty estate jewelry and crystal I was just drooling over! We were papmpered the entire time and felt like celebrities, partly because we were like the youngest couple in the entire hotel and the older people were so amused by the fact that we knew some ballroom dance that some who recognized us the next morning clapped for us when we were coming down into the parlor for breakfast. They liked our dancing apparently! =) The views from the hotel were just amazing, because it is perched atop a hill, so from the front porch you can see this enormous panorama of the Macinac Bridge, a couple of lighthouses and tons of water and sky.
We stayed in the Hotel more than we got out... but we did go down to see the shops, buy FUDGE (which is a famous treat there), and take a few long walks around the island. We also bought a few prints of watercolors by a popular local artist in his gallery, as a souvenier. It was a trip we will never forget, and now we want to go there EVERY YEAR! Anyway.. I will try to get the pictures up tommorow!
