By Tanda Gmiter | tgmitmer@mlive.com

Mackinac Island is a pretty common thread when you’re talking about Michigan love stories. So many people have either met someone on the island, fallen a little deeper in love during a trip there, or been engaged or even married on Mackinac.

To celebrate all these love stories, Mackinac’s landmark Island House Hotel is hosting a special Once Upon an Island getaway May 1-3. It’s designed as a relaxing weekend with a dinner and plenty of time to enjoy the island and the hotel’s amenities.

“For couples who met here, fell in love here, became engaged or married here, or who have returned year after year because the island holds something special, this is an invitation to return to the island you love,” Island House staff said.

“This weekend offers the chance to return to where it began, or to begin again in a place that has always understood romance.”

You can find all the details of the Once Upon an Island package on the hotel’s website here.

Here are the highlights:

An Island True Love Story

The Island House’s weekend getaway package was inspired by lots of Mackinac love stories, including that of Jennifer and Todd Callewaert, part of the family that owns Island House and several other local businesses.

Recently, the couple gave MLive a peek at their own Mackinac fairytale romance: In 1982, Jennifer was about to be a senior at Miami University in Ohio where she was studying education. A friend convinced her to take a summer job working for a hotel on Mackinac Island. She told us that at 21 years old, she showed up with her bible and a bike, and didn’t really know what to expect.

“My parents weren’t crazy about leaving me there,” Jennifer remembers. “But I was pretty excited about it.”

She was assigned to the Lake View Hotel and was part of an early-season skeleton crew that was putting together bedframes and deep-cleaning the carpets. Her partner in crime? The hotel’s general manager, Todd Callewaert, who was about her age. Todd’s family had vast holdings on the island, which today includes the Ryba’s Fudge shops, Island House Hotel, and several restaurants up and down Main Street. When he asked her out for a burrito, Jennifer wasn’t sure if she was smitten or just hungry.

“It was chaotic but lovable,” Jennifer said of the vibe of working at the hotel. “And I didn’t know that the general manager would end up being my husband.”

She and Todd hung out a lot that first summer. She went to his baseball games at the island’s Turtle Park and rode around in the front basket of his bike.

They stayed in touch and Jennifer came back the next summer, but this time her stay on the island was brief. She landed a job with American Airlines and was assigned to the Dallas hub. On her last night on the island, the bar band kept playing “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

“I got on the ferry and I really kind of thought this was it,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t necessarily expect to see Mackinac Island again.”

But for Todd, Jennifer’s absence just solidified his plan to be with her. “I knew I was dating her the second I saw her,” he said. When Jennifer had to leave for Dallas, he rode the ferry back to the mainland with her – and he picked the slowest ferry so he could have just a little more time.

They kept in close touch. A few years later, he invited her on a sailboat ride just offshore from the island. “He brought out a beautiful ring and asked me to marry him,” she said.

“We know so many friends who met the same way,” Jennifer added, referring to all those Mackinac Island love stories.

Follow all the Mackinac Island news on MLive.