“The Big White Barn was started and founded by our family in 2016.  We (Frank and Cathy) have been married for 21 years and are blessed with four amazing kiddos. We are Christians, homeschoolers, hikers, dancers, readers, movie buffs, canoers, and avid MarioKart fans (well, at least the kids are).  We love to play games as a family; we love to laugh together and we’ve been known to sing 80s songs at the top of our lungs in the car with the windows rolled down.  We moved to Wise county in 2009 from the suburbs of Forth Worth.  We immediately bought goats, chickens, and cattle and learned quickly how hard ranching life can be.  After a series of hilarious accidents (have you ever seen 20 corrientes running at full speed down a country road?), we finally got ranching somewhat under control. Whew!

“Part of our homeschooling experience was attending contra dances.  If you’ve ever seen Gone with the Wind and the Virginia Reel, then you’ve basically got the idea.  These are group dances for all ages that are just a ton of fun.  As we took on the task of planning these dances, we started looking around for venues in which to have them.  We wound up visiting several local wedding venues in our search.  After these visits and much prayer, we had a vision for building our own venue based on two basic principles: create something truly beautiful and create a place for our community to come together.

“We broke ground on the Big White Barn in February of 2016 and by October we were hosting our first wedding. We started touring couples through in July while the barn was not nearly finished and there were plumbing fixtures lying all over the place.  To our surprise, people were jumping at the chance to book the barn.  At that time, we were running the venue completely by ourselves. I, Cathy, was giving all the tours and managing the paperwork.  By mid-October, we were ready to hire a venue manager: the phone was ringing off the hook and we were booking weddings left and right.  We were so happy to be able to provide a good salary for a local working mom and learn from her wedding expertise.

​”From that time on, we have been tremendously blessed to be able to host the weddings of some truly amazing couples.

“Frank and I have a real heart for marriage and young couples.  After 21 years, we’ve been through many ups and downs and we know how hard it can be to stay married and, even more, to be happily married.  Our hope and prayer for every wedding is that we touch lives in a positive way and affirm couples in their marriages.  We are also pleased to have added several more sales staff and other venue staff in the past two years.  Our commitment is to provide a positive, growth-oriented work environment that feels more like family than a job.  We strive to communicate well with everyone and work out differences as they arise.

​”We feel we have achieved our goals of a creating a beautiful space (the bridal suite is gasp-worthy) and providing a community congregation space.  The barn is used regularly for local ministry events, fundraisers, and, of course, contra dances.  In fact, if you are looking for a good, clean, fun time for all ages, make sure and pop into one of our quarterly dances sometime!” -The Big White Barn

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