'Gilmore Girls' fans pack Brighton as town becomes Stars Hollow for a day

(This story was updated to add new information.)

There is a certain small-town feel of Stars Hollow, the fictional Connecticut town featured in "Gilmore Girls," that Brighton attempted to match Saturday. With a fall color palette, an impromptu Luke's Diner and an idyllic downtown setting, they came pretty close.

The only problem? There were so many people in Brighton that it didn't feel like a small town at all. It was bustling.

Fans of the iconic 2000s dramedy show came from all over to wear their "Gilmore Girls" merch and their favorite flannels. The event was hosted by two Brighton locals, Kathleen London and Laura Boote, who always felt their hometown resembled the dreamy TV village. The two worked together to get over 40 small businesses on board with the event, temporarily changing their storefronts to resemble locations from the show or offering on-theme special menu items.

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Taylor Allvin, 28, for example, describes herself as a "mild fan" of the show, but drove from Grand Rapids with her friends to be immersed in the energy of Stars Hollow.

"Getting the small-town vibe of the show is fun," Allvin said.

Her friend, Olivia Cook, 31, is from Brighton. While the small-town vibe was certainly present, the local noted that she had never seen so many people downtown.

"This is the busiest I've ever seen Brighton, and I've lived here for 31 years," Cook said.

With hundreds stacked up outside of businesses like Lynn's on First (which was Luke's Diner for the day) or Brighton Coffeehouse (posing as the Black White and Read Bookstore), Cook said she was happy to see small businesses stepping up to the massive influx of foot traffic.

"There's a lot of long lines, but I love how the stores have come together to embrace it," Cook said.

To encourage shopping at small businesses, part of the festivities included a "passport," for fans of the show to gather stamps as they shopped at various stores throughout the day. Anyone brave enough to wait out the long lines in 80-degree heat to shop at 20 of the participating Brighton stores earned an entry into a giveaway of local businesses' goods.

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And in typical small-town fashion, Destination Stars Hollow was a family affair. Lauren Perugi, 31 of Plymouth, and her mother Kathy Perugi, 65 from Northville, joined their friends and mother-daughter unit Deb Chamberlain, 63, and Jessica Gibbons, 34, of Manchester for the day.

The four were sporting matching, bright yellow T-shirts decorated with Gilmore Girls quotes on the front and "Team Logan" on the back, in reference to their favorite love interest from the show.

"We've been watching (Gilmore Girls) as mother-daughter for years," Lauren Perugi said. "When we saw this was coming and Brighton was only 30 or 40 minutes away, we decided to make a girl's day out of it and spend some time in Stars Hollow."

News reporte r Liam Rappleye can be reached at LRappleye@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Gilmore Girls' fans pack Brighton as town becomes Stars Hollow for a day