We recently connected with Meredith Shrader and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Meredith, thanks for joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?
We bought our farm in July 2019. It’s 27 acres, which was quite a bit larger than we were initially looking for, but we love the location close to town and the spectacular views of the mountains. It had an old manufacturing building on it that had good bones, and we knew almost immediately if we could transform the space into a beautiful wedding venue, it would help us to pay for the farm. We started the renovations ourselves in September 2019, and things progresses normally for a while. In January 2020, I got a call from my dad that my mom’s routine back surgery had not gone like they hoped. I immediately drove 300 miles to Raleigh, NC to be with my mom in the hospital. While my mom was fighting for her life, the university where I was working as a part of the founding faculty for a new Physician Assistant program called me and told me they were cancelling the program. I lost my job, effective immediately, and with it the income that was paying for the farm. My mom passed away tragically a few days later. I lost my mom and my job in less than two weeks. Half way through the renovations on the building, we didn’t have a choice but to push forward and try to finish. In March of 2020, I was grieving the loss of my mom and dealing with a building project that was behind schedule and over budget, and COVID-19 broke loose. Everything shut down. We were opening a business built on social gatherings into the first pandemic of our lifetime. For a while, I thought we were going to lose everything. But God had a different plan. My husband and I are deeply committed followers of Jesus. The challenges we faced in 2020 are some of the most significant hardships imaginable: tragic loss of a parent, loss of a job, and with the pandemic came the looming loss of our farm/business/house/savings. But the Lord was faithful to take care of us through the entire process. He used the stress of challenging circumstances to drive us to Him in prayer. He showed us places where we were trusting in ourselves for our daily sustenance, instead of truly trusting in Him. In a world that is full of death and sadness and adversity, He is the only secure Rock, the only refuge. He took care of us. We laid our financial fears at His feet in prayer, and he took care of us. The state of Tennessee gave exceptions to the COVID-19 rules about gatherings to weddings, funerals, and churches. We were allowed to open. My husband was still pastoring a small church full of senior adults at that time, so we took every possible precaution to keep everyone healthy. By God’s grace, no one got sick. And the Lord took care of us, and He drew us closer to Himself in the process.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I went to college knowing I was going to be a Physician Assistant. It’s what I had always wanted to do. I worked hard in school, and finished in the top of my class both in undergrad and graduate school. When I first started working, I realized almost immediately that I like to be my own boss. I settled into a career as a self-employed PA in behavioral medicine, and I spent over a decade actively seeing patients. As our family began to grow, I felt like I needed a change from the emotional demands of working in mental health. So with my husband’s support I launched a LuLaRoe clothing business. I worked really hard at it, and the Lord blessed it. I learned a lot about being an entrepreneur, about social marketing, and managing a small business. It was also here that my husband and I discovered that we really enjoy working together. Selling clothes was a great business for us, but after the birth of our third child, I just didn’t like all the late nights. I was offered a job as part of the founding faculty for new PA program at a local university, so I took it. While I was working for the university, the opportunity for us to buy the farm and build the venue became a reality. The wedding industry was totally new to us, but we had learned a lot about small business ownership through my PA and LuLaRoe businesses. We also knew this would give us an opportunity to work together as a husband and wife team for the foreseeable future. When designing a venue, we wanted to showcase the natural beauty of this place. We built multiple outdoor ceremony sites to provide different feels for different brides. Our mountain view ceremony site offers a big scenic vista behind you. Our forest garden ceremony site features a flower lined pathway through the garden down to a big oak tree draped in fairy lights. For the reception space, which doubles as an indoor option if the weather doesn’t cooperate, we wanted it to feel like home. We chose modern white shiplap with a huge wall of windows. We put in enough A/C to keep it cold when you’re dancing on a summer day. We built a huge patio that looks out over the pond to the mountains beyond. Our bridal suite has a custom mirrors with 4 stations and plenty of space so you can enjoy the getting ready part of your day. So whether a couple wants mountains or water or flowers or lights, every part of our venue is intentionally designed to photograph well. We know our couples want to take lots and lots of pictures on their wedding day. As a family owned and operated small business, couples who get married at our venue work with my husband and I throughout the process. As followers of Jesus, we are deeply committed to treating all of our couples and their guests with love and kindness.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I spent the first ten years of my career working as a physician assistant in mental health. When I was in college and graduate school, I thought I would always work full-time as a physician assistant. But when our children were born and eventually became school age, the Lord changed my desires. I really wanted to be home with them to be able to pour into them emotionally and spiritually, so I cut back at work and started homeschooling. Though I am still a PA and I keep my foot in the door of behavioral medicine, my career decisions for the last few years have been driven by a desire to do what is best for our family, rather than simply to attain professional accolades or financial success. So when I told my husband I wanted to start a clothing business and work from home, he was fully supportive. That pivot would ultimately lead to the purchase of the wedding venue that we now own and operate while we continue to homeschool our children. At some point, I believe the Lord will lead me back to working more regularly in behavioral medicine, utilizing my knowledge of medicine and my perspective as a Christian to offer holistic treatment to people in our community.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
We have always been super conservative financially. For most of our marriage we chose to live on one spouse’s income, which using the other spouse’s income to pay off our house and fund our savings and retirement. When we decided to open the clothing business, we simply took $10,00 from our savings and launched. It only took us about four months replenish our savings from that investment. Launching the venue was much harder. Buying a farm without a residence required us to take out a farm loan, which required a 25% down payment. Even though we had been saving for a down payment for a couple of years, that was more than we were planning. We had to rearrange our savings to make that work and it made us cash poor. To fund the building renovations, we were not able to get a business loan. The banks said it was too risky. So we took out a home equity line of credit against our paid-for house and funded the renovations that way. This is definitely not something I would ever recommend doing. Putting our house on the line for the business added a level of risk and pressure unlike anything we had every experienced. It created an incredible amount of stress in our home. When I got fired from my job at the university and then Covid-19 happened, we were in a position where we could quite literally have lost everything we had, Though the Lord was gracious to us and protected us through that season by providing for us financially, I would never advise or repeat putting our house on the line for a business.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.greenwoodoaks.net
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/greenwoodoaks
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/greenwoodoaksfarm
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@greenwoodoaks
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/greenwood-oaks-farm-and-venue-afton
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/greenwoodoaksfarm/
Image Credits
All photos are used with permissions. Our family photo: Bonnie Widmaier Photography By photo names not order, Pictures 2 and 4: Caroline Rook Photography 5: Jayne Hathaway Photography 6: Micaela Ramsey Photography 8: Katrina Serene Photography 9 and 10: Katy Sergent Photography 13: Sam Bond Photography