Lee Enterprises - Western Region Bridal Guide 2024 | 5
gave them ample time to do that. Friends and family helped repaint the home’s hunter green and burgundy walls in lovely pastels. They brought in an old piano. They created a warm bridal suite upstairs and hung fabric on the guest room walls. In the bathroom, they replaced the big bathtub with a soaking tank. Then they went to work on the barn. They poured concrete over the dirt floor and added windows on the north side to let in light. They installed electricity and inside heating and erected a large awning on the exterior’s north side for shade for outdoor events. They also hung a glittering chandelier that Kern had found in a garbage can. “It had metal rings and a few strands of beads. I added a lot of beads, and in the middle, they put an old light fixture that came from an old house. I added more lights,” Morgan Karlberg, the former event planner, said then. With the loft and the second floor removed in the barn, the barn ceiling was so high that electricians installed the chandelier using an old pulley system that farmers used to raise hay up to the loft. Added, too, were 200 old bleachers from the renovated S-E-M high school football field that Kern found on Facebook. Her father, Nick VanMatre, turned them into tables and chairs. Friend Chuck Gomez built a concrete walkway and a 100-by-100-foot pergola. They laid a concrete dance floor between the barn and the pergola and hung tiny white lights outside to make
the barn sparkle. Worth the wait
Now heading into its third season, The Farm is thriving. Couples rent it from 1 p.m. Friday through 1 p.m. Sunday. They must provide their own catering, florist and disc jockeys or bands. The Farm provides tables and chairs and black and white table linens. Kern noted that The Farm reflects nontraditional wedding trends gaining popularity, but it has its own quirks, too. “There’s beauty here. You might have a deer walk up during the ceremony, or you’ll see a sunset in the evening that you’re not going to see in the middle of town. The Farm gives guests an experience they might have never had before.”
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