A Fall Ball

It takes a certain kind of couple to get married on Friday the thirteenth. The kind like Amy Schneider and Paul Thorbeck, who've built a foundation so sturdy that even omens and spooky folklore couldn't dissuade the intrepid twosome from having a wedding on October 13, 2006. Of course, after dating for nine solid years and seeing each other through everything from senior prom to the purchase of a home just north of Minneapolis, the couple doesn't get too jittery about things. "It really seemed like it would be good luck," Amy says with a laugh.

And good luck it was. A celebration that could've succumbed to the foils of a fabled day was instead a memorable gathering marked by happy coincidences and an idyllic harvest setting at the Gale Woods Farm in Minnetrista. Amy likes to joke that hers is the only wedding she's been to with a "Don't Feed the Animals" rule (the farm boasts sheep, cattle, and egg-laying chickens).

Amy and Paul knew right away they wanted something outdoorsy and casual for their group of eighty close family and friends. "Plus, I really wanted it to feel like fall," she says. When she realized Gale Woods offered hayrides, it was kismet and the couple knew they had landed their perfect site. After a short ceremony, a horse-drawn hayride was ready to haul groups of guests around the farm. Everyone was prepared for the ride with warm dress, heavy blankets, and well wishes for the newlyweds. Amy and Paul made several trips so they could chat with each guest instead of losing the chance in the inevitable post-nuptial frenzy.

The bride opted for homespun décor to set a mood of autumnal comfort and coziness, right down to the look of her gown. Eschewing formal white wedding regalia, Amy found a luscious chocolaty brown silk fabric and enlisted the help of a tailor she had known since high school to make a simple, tea-length dress with a slight '50s flair. "I worried a little that I didn't do white," she says, "but I was so happy I didn't. It's what I wanted to wear and I found the perfect shoes to go with it!"

With that same crafty and confident attitude, Amy reached out to her network of creative friends and collaborators to fashion hand-picked arrangements of harvest flowers and ornamental grasses, pumpkin centerpieces painstakingly carved the night before the wedding, and even freshly baked cookies to be passed out as favors at the end of the evening. Her father's friends, former restaurant owners, offered to cater a buffet dinner of roast pork loin, cranberry-pecan stuffed chicken breast, and butternut squash raviolis.

In perhaps the most unusual twist of fate-cum-coincidence, Amy brought an image she tore from a magazine of a simple three-tier cake with a pumpkin crown and a delicate sheath of spun sugar to the caterer. "I made that," announced the caterer upon seeing the image, "really, that's my work." The next thing they knew, the couple was serving up slices of the chocolate confection for dessert on the big night. "I had to have chocolate," says Amy.

After orchestrating the wedding with a careful eye for handcrafted details, ensuring the comfort of each guest, and successfully turning a spooky day into one of love and good will, there was but one event Amy hadn't foreseen: a surprise toast from Paul. Shy by nature and not given to public speaking, he had secretly plotted to take the microphone and share with everyone, on that intimate October evening, how he was so "excited to finally call Amy his wife."