Orchard View Barn in the Town of Lafayette outside Chippewa Falls hosted eight weddings during 2023. (Submitted photos)

Russ Krumenauer got into the wedding venue business by chance. Back in 2015, a friend asked if he and his bride-to-be could be married in the scenic red barn on the Town of Lafayette farm that’s been in Krumenauer’s family for five generations.

Another wedding followed, and Krumenauer and his family realized that hosting weddings could be a way to maintain the family farm. Their Orchard View Barn officially entered the wedding barn business, hosting as many as 15 weddings a year until cutting back to eight weddings in 2023.

“We’re just operating to try to make a little bit of extra money to keep the farm standing for another generation,” Krumenauer said. The Krumenauers provide the beautiful barn and the idyllic rural setting, while the couples renting the venue provide the love – and the booze.

The latter detail would change under a bill passed in mid-November by the Wisconsin state Legislature which now awaits the signature of Gov. Tony Evers. As part of a massive bill that overhauls a broad swathe of the state’s liquor regulations is a provision that would change how venues such as wedding barns handle alcohol.

Under the previous law, wedding barns like Orchard View Barn didn't need to obtain a liquor license to serve alcohol at weddings, as long as drinks were provided free by the couple.

Under current law, wedding barns don’t need to get liquor licenses if there’s no charge for alcohol served and as long as the alcohol is not provided by the venue itself. In the case of Orchard View Barn in rural Chippewa County, this means that couples bring their own alcohol and pay $100 for a licensed bartender who receives tips – but not payment – for drinks.

But under the bill – approved Nov. 14 by the state Senate on a 21-11 vote, then OK’d by the Assembly on a vote of 88-10 – the rules for occasional venues like wedding barns will change. Specifically, such venues will either have to get liquor licenses much like bars or will have to obtain newly created “no-sale event venue permits,” which will limit them to hosting only six events a year and no more than one event per month.

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We don’t want to have to deal with the headache of a liquor license.

Russ Krumenauer

WEDDING BARN OWNER

Because of the potential cost of obtaining a liquor license as well as the necessary liability insurance, some wedding barn owners like Krumenauer are reconsidering their businesses.

“We don’t want to have to deal with the headache of a liquor license,” nor the extra effort of working with multiple alcohol vendors, he said.

Ronnie Roll, co-president of Chippewa Valley Wedding & Event Professionals, worries that the legislation could shut down some wedding barns. Not only would this impact the barn owners – who are often just trying to make ends meet on family farms – but also engaged couples who may be forced to alter their wedding plans, said Roll, an interfaith minister who performs weddings at numerous venues across the region. Roll and others in the local wedding industry say the bill was backed by – and will benefit – larger alcohol-related businesses, such as taverns and big breweries, rather than nontraditional venues.

After learning of the bill’s passage, one local businesswoman said she considers herself lucky to have obtained a liquor license when she first opened her wedding venue five years ago. Heidi Keys, who owns The Barn at Mirror Lake in Mondovi, said that of the more than 100 weddings she has hosted, only three have been alcohol-free.

“It probably equates to 20 to 25% of my business,” she said of alcohol sales. For Keys, the license is an investment: She pays $800 to the City of Mondovi annually as well as increased insurance premiums because she serves liquor. In addition, she has to buy the alcohol she serves from distributors, who typically require minimum purchases of several hundred dollars.

Keys said she understands that the law needed to change. “I want the venue down the street to have to follow the same rules,” she explained. “But that license should maybe be a little less costly, and maybe there should only be so many of those available. But this literally could put tons of places out of businesses.”

If there’s a silver lining in the legislation, it’s that it won’t go into effect for 24 months, giving wedding barns two years to either adjust or to back a bill of their own.