Jennifer Rutter was sitting in the break room with close colleagues after the unexpected loss of her sister when it hit her. Without relatives nearby, these women sitting around her wearing orange aprons were her family, and it would be these women who would transform her life within a matter of 24 hours.
The wedding was originally planned for October of 2016. Jennifer’s sister was going to walk her down the aisle. “Death has a powerful way of making you realize how short life is – it made us question why we were waiting to get married,” says Jennifer.
As the ladies chatted in the back about how to make this wedding a reality sooner than originally planned, a gentle suggestion of having her special day at The Home Depot quickly grew into a full-fledged event. “I was sitting here like, really? Get married at The Home Depot? But then I realized, why not? This is my second family, and they would do anything for me,” Jennifer recalls.
The decision was made on Monday, and Jennifer came in on Tuesday to get married. Her friends in the Garden Center stayed overnight to dress the ceremony area in flowers from the store. Ken, her soon-to-be husband and a staff sergeant for the U.S. Army at Fort Knox, came in on his lunch break. Surrounded by Garden Center greenery, their children and Jennifer’s Home Depot family, Jennifer and Ken said “I do” in front of store # 2316 in Elizabethtown, Ky.
“As silly as some may think it is, I feel like I was meant to get married at The Home Depot. I was surrounded by so many people that care about me, and with butterflies flying around our bouquets, it really did feel like my sister was there in spirit, too.”
