Michigan Wedding River Birch Lodge Hartland, MI

Nicole and Chris are a perfect couple and they picked a beautiful early Spring Wedding location at River Birch Lodge in Hartland, Michigan.  The lodge is privately owned and lived in year round except for when the owners rent it out for Weddings, Events, and Parties.  You can rent the entire lodge for overnight accommodations as Nicole and Chris did with their family and friends.  The main part of the lodge is a cabin from Wisconsin and then the owners built around that cabin with a huge addition that includes lots of rooms, cathedral ceilings, fieldstone fireplaces, outdoorsy feel with rustic and nature decor, and much more.  This particular Wedding was around 130 people.

Contact Laura Palmer for information on River Birch Lodge at 810.599.6587 and see River Birch Lodge website here.

There is a wonderful lawn area, huge deck, pond, and stone stairway to a wedding location in the backyard for Summer Weddings. This Wedding was indoors due to the time of year and temperature outside.

The inside of the lodge is driven by nature.  The feel is if you are in the outdoors.  The floors are wood flooring with lots of knots, but there is a mixture of carpet, stone, and tile too.  Everything is finished very professionally.  It was fun watching guests come in and tour the place like it was a museum.

The Wedding rings were purchased from Tiffany and Company in their signature boxes.  Short’s Brewing Company supplied some of their new beer, The Cult, for the Wedding day.  Tiffany rings and Short’s beer look pretty sexy together!

The matron of honor, Kari Carr, dabbles in photography and captured the Engagement images of Nicole and Chris which they used to post on their custom Jones soda bottles that were used as guest favors at the Wedding.  Pretty cool!  Kari did a wonderful job of capturing the personalities of Nicole and Chris!

This is the Wedding ceremony indoor location at River Birch Lodge.  If the weather was warmer we would have opened the two side sets of french doors to allow the guests to watch from outside.  There were about 80 guests total in the room and another 10-20 just outside the back doors.

Nicole entered with her father to a tunnel of guests in this beautiful wedding location at River Birch Lodge.   The beautiful Wedding flower design and floral arrangements, including bouquets, boutinerres, table arrangements, wrist corsages, and more were by Aleta’s Flowers and Gifts.

You can reach Aleta at 517.223.7440 or on her Wedding flower website at Aleta’s Flowers here.

The Wedding Ceremony was beautiful.  It really says a lot about a couple that can shed tears of joy amongst family and friends.  Officiating the Wedding was Mark Freier.

You can contact Mark at 810.844.1830 and view his website what if enterprises, llc.

The food was delicious and it was prepared by Jeff Zak Catering.  He had a wonderful crew that ran the bar, stocked the food stations, and cleared all of the dirty glasses and dishes.  They were very efficient and I would recommend them for sure.  The food included a large station in the front room and two smaller stations distributed throughout the house.  They called the dinner a “strolling dinner.”

You can contact Jeff Zak Catering at 734.459.7125 or visit his website at Jeff Zak Catering here.  He is also on Facebook.

Nicole wore a beautiful Casablanca dress with these ornate flower petals on the train and the lower edge.  The Wedding colors were ivory and pale sage green which really matched the color patterns at River Birch Lodge.

Simple, perfect Wedding cake design by Pastry Palace.  I had the opportunity to sample the cake and it was very moist and tasty.

Contact the Pastry Palace at 248.380.2810 or check out their website for your Wedding cake designer here.

DJ services were provided by BDJ with owner Brendan Pfaff.

You can contact Brendan and BDJ at 586.524.8066 or his Wedding DJ website here.

Thank you Nicole and Chris for introducing me to this beautiful Wedding location in Southern Michigan near Ann Arbor at Hartland, Michigan.  This location really was in line with my Wedding Photography style.  I started as a nature photographer years ago and morphed into a Wedding Photographer bringing with me all of the knowledge and shooting styles I used with nature.  This indoor location is one of the closest locations to nature.  It was just perfect.  Thank you to all of the all star vendors.  Everyone made this day run so smoothly for the bride and groom and I felt that too while capturing their images.

Don’t forget to check out the Wedding Photographer from River Birch Lodge.  Call me, Paul Retherford at 231.445.1793 and visit my Destination and Michigan Wedding Photographer website here.  Find me on Facebook and like my Wedding Photography at http://www.Facebook.com/paulphoto

Watch the River Birch Lodge Fusion Wedding Photography below