Holland Michigan Tulip Festival
Hi loves!
I've been so excited to share all about my experience at the Holland, Michigan Tulip Festival with my best friend Tati!
First of all, it has always been an absolute dream of mine to see these gorgeous fields in person. Well, specifically the real Holland (Netherlands), but until then, Michigan will do!
Holland is a small little town in Michigan known for its Tulip Time festival at the beginning of May every year. Tulip Time features Dutch culture including parades, shows, dancing, and everything in-between! And of course, the gorgeous tulip fields that bloom just in time for the festival! These fields were an absolute dream - I can't even explain my joy running through these gorgeous flowers.
Holland is just across the lake from Milwaukee. You can take the ferry, but we decided to drive instead. Driving along the lakeside took us about 3.5 hours (about 2.5 hours from Chicago), so we definitely wanted to stay the night so we could enjoy as much of the festival as possible without having to worry about being too tired to drive home.
Unfortunately for us, our original plan changed due to the weather. We originally planned to go Sunday-Monday, with Monday being our main day to enjoy the tulip fields and get some awesome photos. We wanted to avoid the field on Sunday since it was a weekend and would be packed, but it was supposed to storm all day on Monday!
So we decided to head to the fields around sunset on Sunday for the best lighting for photos and to hopefully avoid the masses of people. We headed to what we thought were the fields, but were just small patches of tulips. I knew this couldn't have been the whole field because I did extensive Instagram research (haha) and knew that there was a huge windmill we should be seeing, which we eventually found out was known as Windmill Island! We were quickly running out of sunlight as we asked around to find the fields only to find out that they were CLOSED! We were so frustrated because it was supposed to storm the whole next day and we still haven't seen what we came to see. I still have no idea why they would have been closed by 7pm!
We decided to wake up early the next morning to check the weather and see if there was any window of no rain, and thankfully there was! We headed to the fields and thankfully there wasn't really anyone else there yet! The rain held off until the very minute we got in the car to leave. I was so incredibly happy that we were able to enjoy the gorgeous flowers.
Funny story- When Tati and I were shooting in the fields and wore matching white dresses and dutch braids (because duh, we're festive) - and we had about 10 people approach us asking if we were part of the festival, or just start taking photos of us on their own cameras! It was so hilarious! Most of them were just sweet old couples who loved our festivity, and I could totally picture my grandma doing something like that. I, of course, got super shy and had no idea what to do when they started taking photos of me. I soon realized how it must feel to be a princess at Disneyworld. Haha!
All in all, we had so much fun at the festival, minus the hectic weather and closed fields. I wish I had more to share about the culture of the festival, but with all that went on we didn't get to see everything. Hopefully we can make a trip back next year and have a better plan to fully enjoy the festival and avoid any stress, but we got to see the main fields and that's all I really cared about, so I'm not complaining!
I decided to do something a little different and make a short little video of our trip instead of photos this time! You can watch it here.
That's all for today! As always, thanks for reading and be sure to subscribe to keep up!
xo
