We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Allie and Todd Detwiler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Allie and Todd, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
We were living in our NYC apartment during Covid, with a toddler and pregnant with our daughter and up late one night drinking wine, playing games, and talking about how awesome it would be to own a wedding venue, a business of our own. We both absolutely love our jobs. Allie is a producer at NBC News and Todd is a designer at Peloton, but the idea of creating a small business of our own and for our children was really appealing to us. When Covid happened, we ended up moving back to Michigan somewhat temporarily, and then more permanently. We started looking at homes and found what we have now call “Adams Manor” late one night on Zillow. We absolutely fell in love with the house the first time we saw it. It’s a 1932 tudor in a super desirable area of Oakland County. It sits back on forty acres of pristine land. It felt like it had the bones for an amazing home for our family and the potential to be a fantastic backdrop for unique weddings.
After nearly a year of negotiations and a complete emotional rollercoaster (we literally didn’t know if we were actually going to close the day of our closing), we finally were able to purchase the home. The possibilities and projects here are completely endless, and we’re constantly reminding ourselves that it’s a marathon and not a sprint. We were able to secure a partnership with Arhaus Furniture early on and they have become fantastic furniture partners for us. The look of Arhaus is exactly what we wanted in our home. It’s elegant and refined and sleek. It’s been a wonderful and creative collaboration. The idea behind it is: experiential marketing. People and couples can see the home and all of the unique furniture pieces we have – it’s essentially a showroom, but in a way that people can stroll and enjoy. It’s really the future of shopping, in our opinion.
We’ve renovated a ton of the rooms – everything from pulling up carpet to painting nearly every room. We’ve gotten the chance to work with fantastic designers and architects and there’s certainly no shortage of projects!
Our space is unique in the sense that there’s nothing really like it. There are golf courses and fantastic estates, but all very inclusive of the catering, and – dare we say – a bit cookie cutter with their approaches. They churn out weddings – sometimes two a weekend, and that’s not what we’re after. We’re targeting one wedding a month for couples who can appreciate that Adams Manor is a completely blank slate. Our couples can use the space however they want. There are a variety of locations for a ceremony and reception. They can dine on the veranda under the stars or completely tent the lower level garden for a reception. They can bring in a favorite, local caterer, and completely customize their day so that it’s exactly what they want. It’s a venue for couples who have a vision and desire to share with their loved ones something super unique.
At the end of the day, this felt like a worthwhile endeavor because we genuinely believe in the idea and one another. We’re great partners when it comes to working together and creating what we think is going to be a great business for our small family. We’ve been able to take advice from family (thanks dad!) and friends, and also tune out the nay-sayers who were obviously skeptical of our idea. And, most importantly, we have a blast enjoying the home and exploring the land with our family. We’ve gone from a small NYC apartment to a home with a ton of character that we love spending time at.
Allie and Todd, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Todd and I met at a bar in NYC 13 years ago! NYC was a backdrop to our relationship and was home to us for a long time. We have endless memories there. Luckily, we’re still attached to the city. I’m a producer at the Today Show and book entertainment guests for the network. It’s an absolute dream job and I pinch myself daily. I’ve been at NBC for over ten years and have amazing friends and endless memories having booked such incredible people. Todd had a long career in magazines as and is now a designer at Peloton in addition to running his own freelance, design studio company. We’re both creative and driven and have always dreamed of having our own business that our family and children could eventually be a part of.
We are really proud of everything we’ve done in the last two years. While working full time and raising two kids, we have been able to renovate (a lot of which we’ve done on our own) and really form a new business endeavor. We’ve put a lot of time, energy, and money into this venture and we’re really proud to see where it goes.
It’s a unique space in a desirable area where people can come and celebrate a variety of events – weddings, showers, birthday parties. Every couple and family who come for a tour say the same thing: Wow, we’ve lived around here for years, and never knew this existed. We want to be able to share a home that we love with others in the community.
It’s an elevated, yet customizable, venue space. It’s grand, but comfortable. Because we do such a select number of weddings, we really want to feel a connection to our couples. We’re involved throughout the entire duration of the process and special day and love to see the vision come to life. We are requiring that our couples have a planner or day of coordinator to assist with the many logistics involved in planning such a special day.
We’re having a lot of fun meeting vendors within our community – planners, photographers, videographers, and florists. The list goes on and we’re excited to continue networking with vendors both near and far.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Word of mouth is everything to us! We know that by providing an awesome venue space and an overall positive experience for couples, that their review will be our best marketing strategy. The goal is for people to come here and be so astounded by what we can offer that they go home and tell friends and family and word continue to spread. Also… Instagram! We’re new to the Insta game, but we have found that the boosted posts have helped reach people who may not have heard about us before. And we feel we get much more bang for the buck with that vs. website marketing like TheKnot + WeddingWire, particularly when money is something that we need to really consider right now. It’s a bit of a dance we’re learning – we want to get the word out there, but we also want to keep some of the mystery.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Like we said, we’re figuring out the world of social media, but we’re learning that it’s important to interact with other vendors and potential clients. We got some initial followers early on when we got some love from vintage bathroom love and older home accounts that reposted some of our initial renovations. And with our Arhaus partnership, we’ve been fortunate to get some more eyeballs. The Instagram advertisements have been big for us and we’re going to continue using that as a marketing tool. Mostly, we are loving meeting new people through our Instagram page. We’re constantly in awe of the creative folks that we have gotten to connect with and seeing like-minded people and businesses and how they have grown is super inspiring to us. Connect with us!!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theadamsmanor.com
- Instagram: adams.manor
Image Credits
Natalie Towne, Ali Stone