God’s Plan for Sparrow Creek Ranch: Kalli Fullerton Doublday’s Wedding Industry Story

OWNING A WEDDING VENUE WITH YOUR DAD IS THE BEST

When I was five, I was always making sure I was outside building something, moving something, and being visibly hard at work for at least an hour before my dad got home. That way, anytime he arrived, he’d know that I was just like him and I was working hard.

I also remember, as the years went by, knowing that I wasn’t getting the education I had always wanted and hoped for on how to build muscle cars. My dad had been a racecar driver, but he loved the vehicles more than the race. He rebuilt, repaired, crashed, changed, and remade the coolest machines of the late 60s and 70s. I grew up in a cute little house in front of my dad’s salvage yard. I’ve always been around those cars and the things in that life, but I never was taken under the wing and given time in the garage. To be fair, my dad didn’t get to do that much either while I was growing up. He had the cars, and he did work on them here and there, but never to the extent that you’ve seen at movies with evenings in the garage. Those times were rare, and far and few between, so I never got the hands-on opportunity to come into his life there. As I got older, I attended the car shows, and became my own investigator, online learning what made the difference between a 68 and 69 Charger. I have impressive surface-level knowledge to talk shop. All that is to say, I always wanted to have something to share with my dad, and I was always seeking ways to talk-shop, be knowledgeable, and be more than curious but impressive.

BUT, the cars were not my purposeful entryway into my dad’s daily life…

God has something so much better.

Some of my favorite memories growing up revolved around his muscle cars. When I was about eleven, my dad got a gorgeous Chevelle with a massive blower on it that wasn’t even close to being street-legal. It was one of the loudest cars I’ve ever heard. He took batches of me and my friends to the movies for my birthday. He got a ticket each way. But my birthday had a car story. A few years later, we did the same thing with a lighting blue Miata with a blue racing stripe that eventually would be my first car. But the best of these memories is when I drove my date to prom in Dad’s 1969 pro-street Satellite with open headers. It was epic. I nearly wrecked the thing a few times, showing off, and then when we arrived at prom, I didn’t fully put it into park. Dad was standing close by, flew through the driver’s side, and saved me last minute.

On my wedding day, we were parked inside the barn, hidden from guests, in the white 1969 Road Runner. To everyone's delight, we pulled out of there and up to the ceremony spot at the Hill Top. My husband and I exited the reception in Dad’s black 1970s GTX.

I found ways to make my dad’s muscle cars part of my story. Over and over.

It’s obvious when you look back that I just wanted to be someone my dad could talk to and share things he loved with. Sparrow Creek Ranch became that piece in our lives I’d always tried to have via the cars.

But God always has a better plan.

When my dad built the barn for my wedding, it opened a door none of my family expected or wished. To have a Wedding Venue. But my dad and I found ourselves with this amazing, unplanned opportunity that turned into us getting to work together, dream together, build together, and talk almost every day about something we both love and are proud of.

That’s why we have SCR, and why we do what we do — to do it together. And then after that comes all the other 100s of reasons! We love it, we love our couples, and we love being part of God’s plan for marriages.