Perfect Waterfront Wedding Locations in the Detroit Area

Start off your futures together with a picture-perfect wedding in one of several beautiful and unusual settings that recall the Motor City's great and historic past, especially the region's deep and enduring links to the rivers, inland lakes and the Great Lakes that fed the Detroit area's settlement, growth and development.

St. Paul's-On-The-Lake Catholic Church
Grosse Pointe Farms

Looking more like a cathedral than a quiet neighborhood church, St. Paul's grew up on the banks of Lake St. Clair, a few miles before uptown from Detroit itself but very much a part of the city's history. Established in 1825 in a log cabin near an old Indian settlement near Vernier Road, St. Paul's now ranks as one of the area's most beautiful edifices, inside and out, its Gothic spires and magnificent Rose Window rising over the lake like a sentinel with each sunrise. St. Paul's, the region's first church, was built in an historic region with a long memory, having celebrated Lake St. Clair's bicentennial in 1879.

If you choose to marry at old St. Paul's, your wedding procession will have the perfect backdrop, the lake to the East, the lovely Rose Window to your West, as you pass the lake-side along a brick path that once led directly from the lake to the massive wooden church doors.

St. Paul's Catholic Church is located at 157 Lake Shore Road in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan 48236. Telephone the church secretary at 313-885-8855 to make your wedding arrangements.


The Old Mariners' Church
Downtown Detroit

Consecrated in 1849, the Old Mariners' Church overlooks the Detroit River in the heart of downtown Detroit, a gateway to the sometimes treacherous Great Lakes that dominated Detroit's growth for most of its developmental history prior to the automobile age. It was established as a haven for the Great Lakes' numerous merchant and enlisted seamen, the funds for its construction provided by the wills of Julia Anderson and Charlotte Taylor in 1842.

Every March, the church - now a National and State Historic Landmark - still holds a special Seamen Service and a ceremonial Blessing of the Fleet.