The Farm in Shelton brings rural charm to weddings

SHELTON — It’s been two years since an aging barn and farmhouse just west of Shelton experienced a renaissance and became The Farm, a unique wedding venue.

That old barn once housed sheep, goats, horses and barn cats. Now, it’s a place where couples exchange wedding vows under a sparkling chandelier, then head outside for a reception. There’s a dance floor, too, and a pergola surrounded by cornfields.

The Farm is an offshoot of The Village, a party and reception center at 1920 A Avenue that, until its transformation in 2019, was a rusty warehouse.

“I think we’re doing well,” Alissa Kern, the owner of The Village and The Farm, said. “It’s definitely nice to be on the back side of the start-up. A few years ago, people heard about The Farm and said, ‘What’s that?’ Now, people know where we are. We’re on the map.”

It’s fully booked for 2023, with 16 weddings scheduled and another already on the books for 2024. In 2022, The Farm was the site of 19 weddings. The 112-year-old farmhouse on the property was separately booked for 12 events.

Kern is getting warm feedback from brides who have held their nuptials there. “The farm was so gorgeous. When we toured it, we fell in love with it,” one recent bride told Kern.

“It’s a beautiful and unique venue, a great spot for a wedding reception for people wanting anything from rustic to country to simple elegance vibe,” another said.

Sarah Ritz, The Village’s events planner, takes prospective clients on tours of the house and property. She also is on site when they arrive for their big weekend. She is a Mason City native and Concordia College graduate who handles the myriad of details involved.

“What do I like about this job?” she asked, repeating a question. Her face broke into a smile. “I love all of it, giving people tours, meeting the family, helping them find a date that works. Just helping people.”

The Village and more

Kern opened The Village in October 2019. She purchased the dilapidated warehouse and transformed it into a site for wedding receptions and other events like parties for birthdays, anniversaries and graduations. Business overflowed, and by early 2020, she began searching for a second location.

“We were so booked. We kept getting calls and we kept saying we had no availability,” she said then. Even worse, COVID-19 forced her to temporarily close The Village in the spring of 2020. That disrupted weddings and other scheduled events.

But it also gave her the time to find a second site, which she did. On Facebook, she discovered a 10-acre farm and farmhouse for sale north of Gibbon, just north of the Wood River. When she drove out to look at it, the owner wasn’t home, so she peeked into the windows.

Inside the barn, she found sheep, goats, two little donkeys, quails, a dog and numerous cats.

After purchasing the property, she and her then-event planner, Morgan Karlberg, made plans to renovate. The COVID closures 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 cement 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.”