Michael and Linda Adler reflect on ten years of memories at Shady Lane.
Photography by Jesi Wilcox.
Several years ago, the Adlers helped lead some marriage retreats and conference weekends for a Nashville organization. Thoroughly enjoying that experience and then launching into branding and leading their own events, they got to a point where they began to be more serious about it on a larger scale. The vision for Shady Lane came as a byproduct of those years of marriage events. Having already served as singers or officiants in most of the area venues, they had a good idea of what improvements they wanted to bring to their own venue if it could become a reality. They spent about five years and every spare moment focusing on location and scope and style and finances and design. After selling their major assets, they took a giant leap of faith, really believing that this was God’s purpose for their next chapter in life. While the challenges were many, the Adlers can now laugh and say those challenges made them stronger. The truth is they didn’t realize how challenging much of this process would be until they were standing in the middle of an empty field with a 100’ tape measure trying to make their vision into reality. True to any construction process, there were typical challenges such as permits, engineering, and topography, but the Adlers believe that the process was nearly painless because of the stellar construction team led by Scott Gurosky of the Birmingham design and build firm, Myrick Gurosky and Associates. Architect Michael O’Kelly, Engineer Joel Childers, Landscape Architect Don Jones, and Project Manager David Peeks were four of the generals that supplied not only their expertise, but also a healthy measure of true passion for this project and their success. They consider each of these people gifts from God along the way.
Linda’s dad was a coach and PE teacher all his life. He was passionate, loved people, loved his family, and was a man of faith. He was also an artist before his passing. Linda was a competitive swimmer and singer and has brought those unique skills into every design element of Shady Lane. Michael’s dad was a US Marine, a hard worker, loved his family, and was also a man of faith. Linda and Michael are most often the first to unlock Shady Lane in the morning and lock it down at night, but they both cherish the roots given them by their parents.
One of Linda’s main highlights was the marriage of two of their four sons at Shady Lane. “Being able to be in a place to provide this space for our own children was worth every bit of work we have put into it,” said Michael Adler. For Michael, several highlights have been the personal relationships he has built with clients. When a potential bride and groom decide to be married at Shady Lane, they are most often new at everything. Michael enjoys those times when conversations help to live out the Proverbs 27:17 verse in the Bible that says, “Iron sharpens iron.”
“We are better people for having met the hundreds of couples who have been married at Shady Lane,” says Adler. “We have had many highlights in our ten years of business, so we will offer two. The first is the moment we laid a 100’ tape measure down in the weeds of this massive empty field and prayed. There was no Shady Lane and no business, just a sense that we were supposed to do this next thing. It was exciting and scary and one giant leap of faith. Our second is the other bookend of this journey just a few weeks ago. We finished an event and actually had a minute to pause and take it all in. We marveled and laughed and sighed and groaned at ten years of investing in brides and grooms and families. It has been such a ride.”
