Today we celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. Some days it seems like yesterday and others much more. We always enjoy hearing how our couples met and got engaged. So to celebrate our anniversary, here is our story.
How we met:
I (Melissa) grew up on a dairy farm in the small town of Lake City, Minnesota. John grew up just a few miles from Eron's Event Barn. I always thought I would be back home married to a dairy farmer. God indeed has other plans for my life. I got a job in Wausau out of college and made the three hour move to Wisconsin. Yes, I am still a Vikings fan, but don't hold that against me! A few years into the job I went with a co-worker to see a brand new milking parlor and dairy barn in the Junction City area. There I met her dad. A few days later my co-worker said her dad wanted to give my number to some guy --- yep, that "some guy" was John. Apparently he had my number for a few months before he finally called and the only reason he called was so people would stop bothering him about it. That same co-worker went with me to meet him - at a bar. I thought we hit it off right away, but John distinctly remembers me saying that I wanted to burn his John Deere blanket as I am a Case IH fan. According to John (I'm sure this blog would be much different if he were writing it) he had no intention of the relationship going any further but thought one of his buddies might be interested. Well, long story short, eventually he decided to keep me for himself.
The proposal:
Leave it to John to pull off something big for the engagement! I was supposed to be coming down from Wausau to visit him the night before I left for a work trip to Georgia. He kept calling me during the day to see what time I would get to his place. Now, if you know John at all, he seems to run on his own schedule and a particular time of the day never seemed to matter much. So I thought it was a little odd when he wanted an exact time when I would be getting to his house. I was also supposed to bring my snow pants and boots because he said we were going to go ice fishing (in the dark apparently). Once I finally got down there we got all dressed and then were just standing outside. All of a sudden I hear faint jingle bells in the distance and getting louder. It is January so no Santa in sight. Instead it was a horse drawn sleigh. The driver took us out into the woods and we walked out to a clearing where he proposed. Yes, it was so romantic and a memory I will always cherish.
The wedding:
We planned our wedding in seven months. I had always dreamed of being married in August because the corn was tall. You may be asking yourself - what does corn have to do with a wedding? Well, I wanted to get have a big white tent in a corn field. Looking back on it now, it seemed impossible and my dad quickly told me exactly that. We were planning to get married at my hometown church and looked at some other venues for the reception but none of them fit us. My dad came up with the idea to have it upstairs in the barn at the farm where they raise their younger cattle. When I went to look at it, the upstairs had tons of hay piled up there, but could envision what it would look like and loved the idea. Much of that cleaning effort fell on my family as I was living three hours away (thank you for all your hard work). The barn was about 1/3 of the size of Eron's Event Barn so half the people were able to eat upstairs, but the others had to eat downstairs. We also rented a tent along with all the tables, chairs and the dreaded porta-potties. I feel so bad thinking about it now that I made my wedding guests use one of those at my wedding and so glad we have beautiful restrooms in our barn. So yes, this is initially where the idea of Eron's Event Barn came into play but neither of us really gave it any more thought for many years until people started asking us to host weddings.
As some of you are reading, you may be thinking that your proposal and wedding was nothing like mine, but I really hope it is not. Each proposal should be unique to you and your significant other. We hear about proposals on vacations, at home and even right on the side of the road by our barn. Each one gives me goosebumps as I get to see the love between couple. Even if you are in the planning process or have been married for many years, I hope you take the time to reflect on your marriage. Our wedding was beautiful and went as planned, but looking back it is not nearly important as the marriage itself. Both of us will tell you marriage is not easy! Sometimes I think it would be easier to go to a job in town and not have to actually "work" with my husband all day, every day, but being able to grow our business and family has been a blessing. Although I did not marry my dairy farmer, God thought I would be more suited with a crop farmer and running a wedding barn instead.
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