Pages & Grapes romance bookstore hosted its grand opening last Saturday, November 23, at 1760 44th St. SW in Wyoming, Mich., with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, wine tote bags giveaway, and a pop-up shop from CozmaLuna Nails.
"Feeling all the feels today!" the store posted on Facebook. "We had an excellent crowd this morning and an awesome start to this adventure!! We love you ALL! Thank you to our family for supporting our dreams and thank you to our awesome community of book lovers for stopping by!"
Owned by Heather Wejroch and James Jones, Pages & Grapes offers a large selection of romance titles, along with candles, bath and body products, chocolate, and more, WOOD-TV reported, adding that the shop also plans to feature Michigan-made wines once a liquor license is secured, and they hope to add a wine bar eventually.
The original plan was to have an all-genre bookstore, but as the project evolved, Wejroch "decided to make it a romance-only store with wine and candles. She was partially inspired by BookTok," WOOD-TV noted.
"They've created this whole community and it is just so inspiring," she said. "(The romance genre) is just taking off. People are loving it."
Although the learning curve was steep and the process sometimes frustrating as they explored making their bookstore vision a reality, Wejroch said her fiancé pushed her to follow through: "James was right there. It's like, 'We've got this. You can do this. You have a vision, just push through.' He was my rock."
"We pushed through and here we are. Goals accomplished. Dreams accomplished," Jones added.
Just before the grand opening, Wejroch told WOOD TV: "I am so excited that the day is finally here. It's been a long road. It's been a lot of work the last week, just pushing through. I can't wait to have the community come in, give us their input, help us create a better bookstore. And I'm terrified, we're terrified. But it's going to be fun."