The best laid plans don’t always unfold the way we think they will.
Sometimes things turn out even better.
Just ask Seymour native, Suzanne Lush, who was married last Friday − and Saturday — to her fiance Brandon Allendorf.
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Lush grew up in Seymour, graduated from Seymour High School in 2009 and then moved away when she went to college at Ball State University in Muncie.
“I moved here (Louisville) in 2014, after I graduated from college,” she said. “I met Brandon through my cousin, who was a friend of a friend, in Louisville.”
Lush is a traveling nurse at Saint Joseph Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky and Allendorf is a fireman.
The couple became engaged July of 2019 and started searching for a wedding venue a month or two after that.
“The original plan was for the wedding to take place at the Mellwood Art Center venue in Louisville last Friday,” Lush said. “We invited close to 230 people and had about the normal amount of people who couldn’t be there.”
She went on to say that understandably, a few decided not to attend due to the COVID-19 uncertainty, so that made the number planning to attend around 130.
Then last Wednesday, Kentucky Gov. Andrew Beshear, increased the restrictions of public events in venues to a limit of 25 people, Lush explained.
“So we decided not to have it there, but will hopefully have a reception next year with everyone we originally invited,” she said. “We decided on a small ceremony with just the bridal party, my parents and his parents, to take place at my parents house in Commiskey.”
The bride-to-be and her fiance had, however, forgotten one not so small detail.
They had a Kentucky marriage license.
The pastor officiating the wedding, Doug Pogue of Brownstown Christian Church, pointed that out to them.
“Rev. Pogue offered to marry us on the Kentucky side, by the river on Friday,” she said. “That way we’d be legally married there and then we just had the small ceremony on Saturday.”
Lush said the Big Four Bridge over the Ohio River was a very pretty spot to get married and also, it was just across the border so Pogue didn’t have to drive all the way to their house.
Saturday’s ceremony also featured a nice backdrop.
“It was even better than it would have been because we were outside and our parents have about 25 acres,” she said. “We had the fall leaves and trees for a backdrop and it was really pretty.”
The couple plan to honeymoon in Mexico, a trip that had been planned for quite awhile. Lush said she is excited just to get away for awhile.
Suzanne’s sister, Kelly Lush, lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, but came home for the wedding and was the maid of honor at the ceremony on Saturday.
They only had three days to get things ready for Saturday’s ceremony.
“We just took all the decorations we were going to use and threw it all together the best we could,” Kelly said. “I had already made all the cupcakes, so we had to find a way to get rid of 200 cupcakes, so everyone left with a box full.”
Rev. Pogue said he has performed a couple of weddings where the first one is for the couple and then a second one for the family.
He said he’s never performed weddings for a couple that involved a license from one state and a formal ceremony in another, though.
“I went to Louisville on Friday just to fulfill the letter of the law for the state of Kentucky,” Pogue said.
Pogue said he had forewarned the couple to consider a change when he saw the COVID-19 numbers were going up in Indiana.
“We have been good friends with the Lush family for many years for about 16 years,” he said. “We moved into our current home on Deppert Court in Seymour and they were our neighbors and they were great neighbors. We would take care of the cats, yards and flowers when the other was away.”
After the Lush’s built a home out in Commiskey and moved a few years ago, they don’t get to see each other as much, but they still talk.
“The Brownstown Christian Church Baby 911 booth at the Jackson County Fair is right next to the Saint Ambrose food stand, so I usually saw them there,” he said. “Mary Ann called and asked if I would do their wedding and I was happy to. It’s not everyday that you can do a wedding for your neighbor.”
Pogue added, the outdoor ceremony was the perfect setting in his mind.
“They have a beautiful place with lots of woods and beautiful leaves, at least up until the winds of last week,” he said. “Their colors of rust and navy were a great accent to the bare trees.”
Mike had made an arch, while Mary Ann and their other daughters had arranged flowers, pumpkins and squash into a great looking backdrop, he said.
Pogue added, with all the ways they’ve had to go off-the-rails with their wedding, a little bit of positive good-feelings and well-wishes from their hometown community might be a boost to the newlyweds.