“The Barn” as she always called it was her heaven on earth.
Alicia Sanderlin’s dream was to own a horse farm. In 1992, her dream came true when she purchased the barn and 80 acres. She raised many horses on her farm and loved them as if they where her children.
She absolutely loved it and spent all of her spare time hanging out at the barn and taking care of her horses. In 2007, Alicia’s dream was cut short when she lost her battle with breast cancer. Our hearts were broken! The barn became a sad place because Alicia wasn’t here anymore.
When Alicia’s bother Eddy was engaged to be married 5 years after Alicia’s death, he and his wife Lisa came up with this awesome idea to turn the hay barn, which Eddy and our late father built for her soon after she bought the farm for her to store her hay into a chapel and get married at the barn.
He put many hours into making it the perfect spot for his wedding. From building the stage and building the pews, the hay barn became a beautiful chapel. After Eddy’s wedding, we were asked many times about renting it so we decided to try it.
But first, where were all of our brides and grooms going to get dressed? Alicia had another dream and that was to have a cabin built on her dream piece of land. Although she didn’t live long enough to see that dream come true, Eddy built “Alicia’s cabin” for all of our brides and grooms to get dressed in. The Barn is such a special place to our family. It is where we feel closest to Alicia.
What once was a place of sad endings is now a place of happy beginnings. With each wedding we witness comes much needed healing for our family. There is a peace at the barn that is hard to explain but I think we can all agree that is a part of Alicia’s welcoming, kind and humble spirit. Each bride and groom that gets married at the barn becomes a part of our “barn family”.
We continue to be humbled by the support that has been shown to us in our few years of business.
