Newlyweds have tractor attraction

BY DAVID STEINKRAUS
Journal Times

Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:34 PM CDT

TOWN OF WATERFORD — In the city they’d have limousines. But this wasn’t the city, so Catherine Keeku, 22, arrived for her wedding on her father’s tractor, the diesel growl of the Oliver 2255 playing counterpoint to the traditional wedding march.

It wasn’t just the bride’s arrival; the whole ceremony on Saturday afternoon revolved around tractors one way or another. The wedding party rode to up to the pavilion on a hay wagon pulled by a small New Holland, all part of the scenery at Green Meadows Farm, a public attraction on Highway 20 a couple of miles west of Waterford. It also happens to be owned by family members of Catherine’s new husband, Andy Keyes, 28, and several family members have been married there.

There were 20 to 30 tractors on the grounds. Keyes’ friends or family had brought their machines for the wedding and also for a little early-morning fun.

"We were pulling by 8," he said, "pulled for four hours. It was a good time."

He does grading and excavating work, so tractor pulling is his hobby; but it’s one he pursues from early summer through August at county fairs and other events. Last weekend he was in Appleton, he said. His new wife has pulled, too, but doesn’t have her own tractor — yet.

The tractor wedding idea came from a cousin of Catherine’s, and it came up about a week or so after she and Andy announced their engagement in late February, she said. It didn’t surprise her.

"I’ve been raised with that," she said. My parents did that. He knew my parents through that."

When the ceremony was over, Keyes helped his new wife up on his Ford 7840, and they looped the pavilion once, then stepped down to sign the wedding license with Court Commissioner Tim Daley and the witnesses. The front weights on her dad’s Oliver served as a table.

Andy and Catherine Keyes will live in Burlington.

Special Offer: Get 5 Weeks of the Journal Times for $7!