Homegrown Wedding

Reader Contribution by Cindy Conner
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When my husband and I married in 1972 we had a wedding typical to most weddings in Parkman, Ohio, my hometown. The ceremony was at the church and the reception was at the Community House. The Mothers Club managed the Community House and provided the homecooked food. We did the decorating ourselves. Originally a cheese factory, many, many years ago, the Community House has been the place for community gatherings for as long as I can remember. We still go there for their pancake breakfast if we are visiting relatives in March and we still see people we know. I guess I assumed that every town had something akin to a Community House, but attending weddings over the years, I’ve come to realize weddings have become something entirely different than what we had.

Two years ago our daughter and son-in-law got married and wanted nothing to do with the conventional wedding of today. They set out to plan a wedding that truly was born out of love. They had met in 2004 at Brookview Farm. First Betsy, then Chris left for Arkansas. Now they were moving back and wanted to get married where they fell in love. With the blessing of Sandy and Rossie Fisher, owners of Brookview, plans started rolling. Just so you know, this is not an agri-tourism facility, just friends helping friends. The reception would take place in the barn, which would have needed much more work to have passed inspections for using it as a rental hall. This was just a fun gathering of people used to country ways and knowing where to step to avoid hurting themselves. The wedding ceremony itself was held outside, officiated by a friend of Betsy and Chris’s. Luke, Betsy’s brother, used his ox team and wagon to bring the wedding party to the site and take the bride and groom away. The guests sat on straw bales outside.  

The wedding was set for June 19 and it was natural for me to grow some of the food. We wanted to source the rest locally and realized that finding a caterer to go along with all our plans might prove difficult. They have their own suppliers and ways of doing things. So, we called our friend Molly, who agreed to join us in this adventure. Molly is the principal viola in the Richmond

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