Starting at the Beginning....

Hello! I’m Mary Kay. The Red Barn at Bushnell is our family farm and now barn wedding & event venue. My plan is to share some of our adventures and hopefully provide you with a bit of amusing &/or helpful wedding planning info along the way. This is my first ever attempt at blogging so please be gentle:) Today’s installment is just about who we are & how we got here. My husband, Ray, and I bought the property with the idea of eventually building a smaller house (with no stairs!) and retiring here in Bushnell with our cows. There was a big, beautiful, red barn complete with a full apartment upstairs, which we could live in while building our house when the time came. Fast-forward six months or so and we were having a wedding! A lovely young woman who went to school and played softball with our youngest lost her venue just weeks before her wedding. Sarah asked if they could use our barn and everyone went to work! The bride, her now husband, family & friends put together a stunning event, which got the wheels in motion for us to pursue starting our venue. Almost exactly a year later, in October 2016, we were official! Ray is the chief farmhand, builder of benches and all around handyman. Our daughters, Heather and Sarah, are both on board as well. Sarah is our Day of Coordinator (she just happened to have a degree from UF with an emphasis in event planning…crazy how things work out sometimes). Heather works on our social networking, organization and anything else we need. I actually retired to manage the venue in January of 2017, which was a little earlier than I planned, because things took off much faster than we anticipated. I truly can’t express how much we have enjoyed getting to know the couples, families & vendors at each and every wedding we’ve hosted at the barn:) We absolutely love what we are doing…come see us and join the fun!