Many visitors flock to West Michigan during the warmer months as it’s a popular summer tourist destination, but the area also found its way into a Michigan-made movie filmed 19 days throughout the cold winter season.
The film, “A Holiday I Do,” follows a single mom trying to save her ex-husband’s Christmas wedding and the family farm. While navigating the holiday season, and changing family dynamics, she falls in love with Sue, the wedding planner.
Locals or frequent visitors might be able to spot familiar locations throughout the movie: Saugatuck Douglas Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, Sherwood Forest Bed and Breakfast, The Dunes Resort, Back to the Fuchsia, Rosemont Inn, It Is What It Is, Maplewood Hotel, and Urban Found.
![]()
Courtesy Paul SchneiderLindsay Hicks as Jane and Rivkah Reyes as Sue in a flower shop.
While romantic holiday movies are not a new idea, and there’s an entire channel that churns out nothing but those cheesy movies filled with Christmas sweaters and hot cocoa each year, this film is different with a LGBTQ spotlight.
“The film prominently features recognizable West Michigan landmarks and businesses, Saugatuck was an important collaboration, says the film’s co-director and co-producer, Paul Schneider of
Rock Solid Creative Studios. “Saugatuck is very LGBTQ friendly, and that is what initially drew us to that location. The city was so supportive and let us shut down a road for a few hours. With a project like this, to have a mission and purpose behind it, it was important to have discussions with city officials, and those proper meetings and channels.”
In Grand Rapids, filming locations included Black Pigeon Studios, Kula Yoga, and Cakabakery. Scenes were also shot at the West Michigan Regional Airport and Caela Scott Bridal & Formalwear in Holland.
The movie stars Jill Larson (All My Children), Marsha Warfield (Night Court), Rivkah Reyes (School of Rock), Lindsay Hicks (The Better Half), India Wanebo (Beware the Lake) and Michigan actors Joe Piazza, Kayden Bryce, Dale Dobson, Colette Hahn, Mandy Logsdon, and others.
![]()
Courtesy Paul Schneider“A Holiday I Do” opens with a scene with Monique Madison, a Kalamazoo resident and a drag queen at Five15 in Royal Oak.
Many of the cast and crew members are West Michigan natives or Detroit locals, showcasing the state’s wealth of talent, Schneider says.
COVID delays
“A Holiday I Do” marks Schneider’s third feature film, which started out as an idea in 2019. While watching mainstream holiday films on Hallmark and Lifetime with his partner, Alicia, they realized there was no LGBTQ representation within the lead characters.
“At the time in 2019, I had just finished my second feature,” Schneider says. “I was like, ‘well, if it doesn’t exist, let’s make one ourselves.’ We had a close friend and collaborator, Melinda Bryce, who’s an amazing screenwriter and we worked together on the story.”
COVID-19 delayed the movie’s filming, which was pushed back a year. Being a small independent film without a budget for snowmachines, the movie was made during the bitter cold winter West Michigan is known for. Streetscapes filled with Christmas decorations fill the scenes, shot from local main streets across some frigid days back in January 2022. The movie celebrated its premiere in November 2023 at the Michigan Theatre of Ann Arbor. Before the holiday season in 2024,
“A Holiday I Do” expanded to additional streaming sites including Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Spectrum TV, Fandango At Home, and Tello.
Alicia Schneider, the co-director and co-producer of the film, says the story is a personal one. She identifies as a queer woman.
“It was very important for me to not make a coming out story,” Alicia says. “I think a lot of queer films have that aspect, but I wanted it to be two women who knew who they were, were confident in their identities, and they just happened to fall in love. I wanted it to follow the same format as every other cheesy Hallmark film out there. I wanted it to be campy, very gay, and I wanted the queer community to be able to have exactly what the straight community has — which is a very typical Hallmark Christmas movie, but two women get to fall in love instead of a man and a woman.”
Schneider says it was important to be able to see herself on screen at the time, but over the past few years, there have been more types of couples and connections showcasing a variety of relationships.
“My biggest hope is that people who have not previously been represented in film are able to sit down and watch this movie, feel warm, cozy and represented,” she says. “I would love for it to be picked up by a network, and for millions of people to see it. I know for a fact that the people who need to see it are going to, and I am so happy with that.”
![]()
Courtesy Paul Schneider “A Holiday I Do” marks Paul Schneider’s third feature film, which started out as an idea in 2019.
Screenwriter and Detroit-area resident Melinda Bryce met Paul and Alicia seven or eight years ago when her daughter Kayden began acting in movies, directed by Paul. The duo approached Melinda about their idea for their own movie about four years ago. After brainstorming ideas, they came up with an outline to include the familiar tropes of holiday films: Christmas decor, a quaint small town, a few almost-kisses throughout a charming love story, and predictable, happy endings — but with their own self-aware spin on things.
“The biggest thing was to keep this light and not have the film about being gay,” she says. “Being gay is a fact of their life, but not really the central focus of the film.”
As the movie has made its way to more streaming sites, the feedback from viewers has been positive. Even Bryce’s close friends have related to the film strongly, to her surprise.
“One of my very best friends of many years who has been married for 27 years came out and has divorced,” she says. “I have watched this again and bawled my eyes out because so much of what my friend and her husband are going through is so much like what the character Jane is dealing with. It made me feel so good because even though that’s not my experience as a cisgender woman, it meant so much to me that I was able to capture something that was very authentic.”
Bryce was proud to use her talent to hopefully make a difference. She hopes the movie becomes a holiday favorite.
“I hope people share this movie with their friends and family,” she says. “A lot of people outside of the queer community are watching this film, feeling comfortable and are getting joy out of this movie.”
Message of love
Even though it’s a movie set around the holiday season, the message of love, acceptance, growth and change remains relevant year round. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a message that all business owners or potential filming locations wanted to sign up for. Once some locations learned about the LGBTQ focus of the film, they backed out in their participation.
In addition to the Grand Rapids and Westside spots, Metro Detroit homes and small businesses including Soho in Ferndale also welcomed the film crew with open arms.
Alicia says it was important to the crew to ensure filming locations were affirming and safe spaces for the actors and extras — many who are part of the LGBTQ+ community themselves. The film opens with a scene with Monique Madison, a Kalamazoo resident and a drag queen at Five15 in Royal Oak. Madison plays a bar hostess where character Jane attends a speed-dating event for lesbians.
“I’ve been in a few documentaries, but this was my first time doing a scripted movie, and it was amazing,” Madison says. “Paul Schenider is a genius, he’s super considerate, very LGBTQ+ friendly, aware, and respectful.”
Madison considers the Metro Detroit area, including Royal Oak and Ferndale to be very welcoming communities, but has seen a fair share of discrimination in smaller towns throughout their 30-year career.
“There was a lot of pushback from smaller towns where we were trying to grab that small town feel,” Madison says. “Unfortunately, people still have backwards thinking and it was a shame. We had this incredible project coming in to promote your town and your businesses, and instead of allowing that and shining as an ally, they decided to push back against us. It was disappointing, but I deal with this every single day.”
Using actors who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community adds an authentic richness to the film, says Madison.
“I’m a 46 year old gay male who is married and a drag entertainer traveling all over the United States,” Madison says. “Being able to use that experience is so much more authentic, because we have really dealt with the pain of being part of that community. We haven’t always been loved, and there are still big parts of America that don’t love us. To be able to have that joy and pride and see yourself up on the big screen, that’s a giant deal.”
![]()
Courtesy Paul Schneider“A Holiday I Do” celebrated its premiere in November 2023 at the Michigan Theatre of Ann Arbor.
On the other side of the state, Jason Kakabaker, owner of Kakabakery in Grand Rapids, also saw the behind-the-scenes magic of movie-making. Kakabaker’s bakery about a mile East of Downtown Grand Rapids. The sweets shop also served as a filming location for the movie too.
“Paul sought me out as being a LGBTQ owner of the bakery, which was really important to him — which I respect,” Kakabaker says.
The bakery’s natural light, the kitchen space, and picturesque ‘small shop’ vibe made the location suitable. Kakabaker says it was fun to see the bakery rearranged, and witness a long day of rehearsing, acting, and the actors interacting in his familiar space.
“I was on a Food Network show, “Cupcake Wars” a couple years before that, but I wasn’t familiar with how much goes into making a movie. It was pretty impressive to see the lengths they went to for lighting, angles, colors, and it was very interesting.”
He hopes to see more of Grand Rapids skyline and Lake Michigan as the backdrop to other movies soon.
“Let’s show it off, and get people here to tour the space and see beautiful Michigan,” he says. It’s great because you can ask locals to be extras, and it’s a community involvement thing which is huge.”
A portion of the proceeds from “A Holiday I Do” will be donated to The Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention for the LGBTQ+ community.
“If, by any stretch, this movie helps somebody, we have succeeded,” says Bryce. “We had an incredible cast and crew that were so passionate because of what this movie was about.”
Paul has been happy to hear positive responses from viewers after COVID and a harsh winter led to one of his most challenging filmmaking experiences.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve done,” he says. “There were points where the thought of ‘if one more person exists because this film exists, then all this is worth it’ helped me push through.”
He hopes to host local film screenings at LGBTQ+ centers next year, and have the movie reach more audiences across the country.
Sarah Spohn is a Lansing native, but every day finds a new interesting person, place, or thing in towns all over Michigan, leaving her truly smitten with the mitten. She received her degrees in journalism and professional communications and provides coverage for various publications locally, regionally, and nationally — writing stories on small businesses, arts and culture, dining, community, and anything Michigan-made. You can find her in a record shop, a local concert, or eating one too many desserts at a bakery. If by chance, she’s not at any of those places, you can contact her at [email protected]