Update Starting Over Keeping Hope

 

Yesterday was a bad day. The last two weeks have been difficult to say the least. Despite dealing with the county months prior to even purchasing our land and doing everything we thought was by the book, we have ran into some difficulty with zoning. Yesterday we sat down with the Pasco Zoning Administrator. After saying many kind things about our vision for the Ever After Barn and complimenting our website, she told us we can not have our dream here in Pasco. It was a kick to the gut! We love our town! It’s where our heart is! This is what we found out:

You can not legally operate a wedding venue on any type of Agricultural property in Pasco county, AT ALL! At first we where thinking that you can go through a hearing process for a special exception. BUT this is not correct!!

I could tell she was not really happy she had to deliver this news. What was even harder to hear was they are just now starting the process of seeing what can be changed to be more accommodating to these situations. The Zoning Administrator informed us this could be a very long process which could take at least a year + and include 3 different public hearings.

 

(photo of the Ever After Barn 2 weeks ago when we stopped construction)

So what does this mean for the Ever After Barn? We are going to hold our heads up high, believe in our dream and start over again. We just can’t help but feel this is meant to be. Maybe not here, but somewhere! We have already started talking to other counties who all but one, seem to be very confident on the requirements to have this type of venue in their boundaries. Our property is already up for sale and the only thing we can do is hope that it sells fairly quickly. It’s going to take time, but we are hoping in the next year or so we could be picking up where we left off. We could not have been more blessed with all the support and encouragement we have received thus far, and hope our experience might help provide knowledge to others in the future. Hope to be in touch sooner than later! xox

 

UPDATE: 3/26/2015 Unfortunately we have not had much luck with any sort of progress! We continue to run into difficulties with the counties and no one thus far giving us a clear yes to go forward. Meanwhile rumors of other barn venues in different counties being shut down for various reasons, while others seem to continue business as usual is discouraging! We are still trying but it could be years before we see any changes. We are putting efforts into offering wedding styling and vintage rentals. Including farm tables. The Ever After Barn name has been changed to Ever After Vintage Weddings.