Once we received news that the Crooked Willow property was a go, we realized we only had ten days to get our old home ready to sell! (Ten days to finish what felt like ten years worth of renovations!) Thankfully our house sold in just a couple of weeks. We moved into our neighbor’s basement until the Crooked Willow property was finalized! But we weren’t out of the woods yet!
Getting our loan secured for the property wasn’t exactly smooth sailing! We originally tried to borrow from a local bank that Derek was familiar with. We went in, presented our plans, and was basically told no. We walked out of that first bank meeting thinking that our dreams of a Crooked Willow wedding venue may stay dreams. As we walked to our car, feeling somewhat defeated, a lady from inside the bank came running outside after us. She told us that her mom worked with a local small business development center and that we should contact her if we needed help. So that is exactly what we did! We met with her mom the very next day! She helped us get a business plan and presentation together and connected us with a bank that was on board!
We were ecstatic! Our future wedding venue wasn’t too far away! BUT, just a few weeks before our official closing date, our new bank called us and told us they were out. We were devastated! What were we going to do? We had already sold our home! We were still living in our neighbor’s basement. Thankfully, our friend Joanna Hvezda didn’t let us give up! She encouraged us to connect with a local bank in the area. To our relief, the local bank was on board with our wedding venue plans!
We FINALLY closed on the Crooked Willow property in January 2018. It was about a month later than our original closing date; but we were just happy to finally have the property!
-Derek and Jody