When two local teachers decided they would like to help others head off on a solid road to a happy marriage their ideas and planning have resulted in the new event center, The Brim at 14150 NW Walker Road in Kansas City.
Happily married for almost seven years, Aaron and Kelsie Kleinmeyer are excited about their first venture into the business world.
The idea came to them a few years ago when they decided to create a place that would foster strong and healthy marriages.
“We thought it would be best if we would just buy some property and then build a space where couples could get married and then offer premarital or post- marital classes to them and give them an opportunity to just strengthen their own marriages,” Aaron said. “That’s kind of what fostered it and we just feel a strong sense that we want to give back. We are happily married and we love being married.”
The chapel hasn’t been built but the planning stage is well under way. Aaron is doing much of the work himself and has been leveling dirt on the property, putting in an irrigation system and putting down sod.
“We’ve had a lot of help from people along the way, people who’ve really just kind of gifted their time, telling us they believe in what we’re doing,” Kelsie said.
The large telephone poles that outline the walkway at the event space have been donated and have the carved names and the wedding dates of the couples who donated them. Kelsie believes this will be appreciated by couples who get married at the venue as they will get to see the legacy of the other people who care about marriage.
The poles are placed as the markers of the dimensions of the future chapel. Until the chapel is built the outdoor area is being used for weddings. There is no charge for use of the outdoor space on weekdays, only a charge on weekends.
“Kelsie and I are not made of money so we are trying to fund this thing to get the chapel built and we’re just about ready to pull the trigger,” Aaron said. “We’re still a little short on funding but we think it will come through. We raised about $35,000 so far just from people we know who care about marriage.
The Kleinmeyers are forming a foundation with a not-for-profit board of directors who are looking at options for educational classes.
The educational accompaniment to the chapel could include a secular pre-marital class.
“It’s not required,” Kelsie said. “We just thought it should be available to everyone. You don’t have to go through a church to do that so the foundation will put those educational resources together. We just want to keep it simple. We looked at the biggest reasons why people get divorced in America and we wanted to build classes around those things.”
In their research, the Kleinmeyers found that marriages are threatened by many things and the top three are finances, communication and infidelity. They hope to organize finance classes which will focus on navigating through money challenges and how to successfully manage a household budget.
“We want to help people invest in not just their wedding day, but their whole marriage,” Kelsie said. “We’re not going to make anybody do those courses. We’re not going to make anybody do anything. But we know some couples that are older and they’ve been married for more than 50 years and they’ve said, ‘I wish there was somebody when we got married that would have done this for us and our friends.’”
The serendipitous story of how they found the land for the chapel two years ago still amazes the couple. When they realized they wanted to open the venue they began looking for land. But they soon realized that finding affordable property was going to be a challenge. The property they were interested in went off the market very quickly.
“It was all going off the market so quickly and people were paying cash and 20 percent over the asking price so we thought, well this isn’t going to work,” Aaron said. “So I drove by this piece of property and I looked up on this hill and I thought, that’s really pretty. And I went online and I figured out who owned it. They live in California so we just wrote them a letter and said, this is what we want to do. We put our Christmas card photo in it and mailed it. About a month later when we hadn’t heard anything from them we said, ‘well, maybe it didn’t work.’ Then we got a phone call from a selling agent asking if we still wanted the land. We said, what do you mean do we still want land, how did you know we wanted land? And she said, ‘I have your letter in front of me.’ They agreed to sell it to us before it went on the market and so we scrounged together the 20 percent we could put down.”
After the purchase of the 16 acres of rolling hills and open green fields they began planning the chapel and searched wedding chapels throughout the country. They found a place in Texas that gave away free weddings, which is ultimately what the Kleinmeyers want to do after everything is paid off.
They were headed for Texas for a vacation so they decided to contact the wedding venue and meet the owners.
“We asked how they did it, how they ran it and what options they had,” Aaron said. “They told us they didn’t really have much when they got married, a very basic wedding and now they’ve done pretty well for themselves and wanted to give back. They said they loved what we were doing and they wrote us a check for 10 months of our mortgage. They introduced us to a gentleman there that is an actual architect of their chapel and all the buildings on their property and he told us he was going to fly to Kansas City and design our chapel for free.”
The chapel will have two bell towers and four garage doors that open on both sides of the building so that wedding guests can spill out onto the lawn. The chapel, which will hold from 90 to 100 people, will be non-denominational. It won’t really look like a church and won’t have pews. It will consist of just one, large, open room with many doors that will overflow people outside under an overhang.
The builders assured the couple they’re going to give them the best price they possibly can.
After the chapel completion they hope to begin work on a reception center and outdoor party tents. They have also planted about 200 plants for a small vineyard and eventually they will open an on-site tasting room.
They are also selling bricks for the outside aisle that have couple’s names on them with the date they got married. And there are already future brides and grooms touring the venue.
“One day the couples can come back and say, ‘This is where mommy and daddy got married,’” Kelsie said. “We want to offer the opportunity so that people can engage on other occasions, not just that one day.”
The couple’s goal is to create a venue where people can not only get married but also come back year after year to celebrate anniversaries and other family activities.
“What we found with this new generation is not all of them are getting married, but the ones that do are very committed,”Aaron said. “We just want to help foster that commitment, which is really cool. Marriage is still viable in our society and it’s part of a strong family, strong kids, strong communities.”