For cover couple David and Lucy Vorce, their perfect day was almost spent indoors. After an evening of dining and rehearsal in the penthouse of the Inn at Bay Harbor during the first week of September in 2007, the rain started pouring.
“I thought, ‘It won’t stop,’” Lucy recalled. “It rained through the night and in the morning.”
But, when the skies finally cleared, there was a hardly a cloud to be seen. The sun came out and made the perfect backdrop to for an early-evening wedding.
It’s been shining ever since on the couple.
Introduced by friends in 2004, the Vorces met while watching a football game at a restaurant in Grand Rapids. After developing what Lucy, 29, calls a “crush” for David, 32, she worked up the courage to get his number from a friend.
“I guess I asked him out,” she jokes. “I liked him right away.”
Like their wedding, the couple was on a beach when David decided to propose to Lucy. They were on Christmas vacation in Cancun, Mexico, when they took a walk along the shore. There in the sand, David asked her to be his forever.
Not long after, the couple called Emerald City Designs in Farmington Hills, a wedding planning firm, and told them they wanted their wedding to have a small, beach feel.
Because Lucy is originally from Mackinaw City, the two had traveled to the Inn at Bay Harbor for weekend escapes in the north. So when it came time to pick a location for their wedding, there wasn’t much question about where it was going to be.
And with the sounds of waves and music, the two walked down the aisle in front of 100 or so of their family and friends two years ago this fall.
Remembering the day, Lucy said her thoughts always return to their first glass of champagne during the reception dinner, looking out on all the happy faces, and a Lake Michigan sunset in the background.
“I just think about that moment, their smiles and with the horizon and the blues and purples and the reds behind the tables,” Lucy reminisced.
Their special day included posing for photos, of course, including the cover shot that graces the front of this Wedding Guide, all taken by Linda Drayton. An award-winning photographer for more than 18 years, her business — Linda and Jana Drayton Photography — is located in Petoskey.
“Linda shot my senior pictures and my sports pictures (in high school), so there was never a question of who was going to shoot my wedding,” Lucy said.
Since their wedding, the couple has moved to San Diego and taken on new jobs, David as a corporate accounts executive at the Softchoice Corp. and Lucy as the head coordinator for quality control for the Plackers dental floss product by Ranir.
They haven’t let work slow them down; the couple has taken to body surfing and hiking in the year since moving out West. And with their second anniversary approaching (shortly before press time), the couple is planning to celebrate with a trip to Alaska.