RESTROOM A cut above the

nce the I do’s are done, the wedding reception begins. Spirits are high — and they’re also available at the bar, and that means guests raising a glass (or two or three) to celebrate the new couple. But all that reception revelry takes careful planning, including making sure guests are privy to an important piece of information: where the facilities are located.

If your reception is indoors, it’s just down the hall and to the left, but what happens if you don’t have any halls — or walls for that matter? You bring your own.

Enter, a local business who knows what a big deal it is to have the proper facilities on hand for outdoor weddings. Big John, an Oregon-based portable toilet company, offers units specifically marketed to weddings and other special events — and we’re not just talking about your run-of-the-mill porta-potties (though they do offer those). Big John also has units designed specifically with weddings in mind, where guests can tend to important matters, whether it’s touching up makeup or taking care of business.

As a longtime leading local name in the portable toilet industry, Big John realized about seven years ago that it could tap into a growing market for portable restrooms designed for wedding receptions, with only a few adjustments to their existing standard units.

It was an idea born in a barn.

“The idea behind it started with the emergence of backyard weddings,” Big John general manager Brix Byers said. “People living in a rural area knows somebody with a barn, and these local vendors started popping up where you could have a wedding in a barn or a shed, and turn it into something more formal than your usual farm setting. Your stereotypical farm gets cleaned up with these outdoor weddings, but these places didn’t have places to go to the bathroom.”

Need units with more space?

Big John’s

Platinum line of portable toilets are roomier than the standard unit, and come with a flushable toilet, sink, soap dispenser and a pair of mirrors. They also are handicapped accessible.

Big John’s wedding units — resembling the standard type seen at other outdoor events — come in two lines: Silver, a more basic unit; and Platinum, which are larger and come with a few more amenties.

The Silver standard units are 45 inches wide and deep by 88 inches tall. The exterior has faux wood siding and a crescent moon in the door for an added touch of whimsical decor. They offer enhanced ventilation, an interior lock with a red-and-green occupancy indicator, hand sanitizer dispenser, shelf and interior light.

The larger, handicapped-accessible Platinum unit makes it easier to change clothes and tend to other grooming needs. The toilets are flushable, and each unit also has large mirrors, a foot-pump sink, a shelf and lightning. These units are about a foot-and-a-half wider than the standard ones and have a forest motif, with pine trees and gentle waves pressed into the plastic walls.

Both the Platinum and Silver units are white: the perfect look for a wedding.

“In following the wedding theme, we ordered white portable toilets and added features like the mirrors, the flushable toilet bowls and the sinks inside,” Byers said.

If you really want to step up your game at the reception, let guests step up into Big John’s luxury portable restrooms. The Formal unit (left) offers a mirror, LED lighting, climate control, soap and hand towel dispensers and a spacious interior decked out in eye-catching decor. The men’s side comes with a private toilet and two urinals, the women’s side with two private toilets, and both come with a sink. There’s also a smaller, Standard trailer (below), which features climate control, toilets and a urinal, sink, soap and hand towel dispensers, a mirror and LED lighting.

In 2017, Big John took the portable restroom experience to a whole other level, adding luxury loos to its inventory. The business can roll up to a wedding hauling a trailer with a touch of class, with amenities on par with indoor facilities.

The Formal Trailer has a mirror, LED lighting, climate control, and a spacious interior decked out in eye-catching decor. The men’s side comes with a private toilet and two urinals, the women’s side with two private toilets, and both come with a sink. The exterior is pewter gray with formal script on the doors.

The Standard Trailer, also pewter gray, is a two-unit unisex trailer with a more basic interior. Like the Formal Trailer, it comes equipped with a sink, soap and hand towel dispensers, mirror, LED lighting, and heating and AC.

“We really sold everyone on the more formal approach to a portable toilet, and then, as the years went on, there was another emergence within the portable industry of these restroom trailers,” Byers said. “They … really take a jump up of how formal and fancy you want it to be at your wedding.”

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Big John was founded in 1975 in Polo and currently is a division of Lakeshore Recycling Systems of Chicago, which purchased Big John in January 2021. Since the acquisition, Big John’s units are available to customers within LRS’s service area, which includes the DeKalb-Sycamore area and the Quad Cities.

To determine how many units are needed, a planning chart is available on Big John’s website — bigjohnusa.com — with the number of people attending and how long the event will be. For example: A 5-hour wedding event with about 350 people attending would need at least four units. If beer is served at an event, there is a small addition to the number on the chart, and at least five percent of the total units must be handicapped accessible, per Americans With Disabilities Act requirements.

Big John also offers handicapped accessible units, “one-and-a-half” units with more room and a sink, as well as standalone dual and single-serve sinks.

In the 8 years that Big John has offered the wedding-styled units, they’ve been “very well received,” Byers said, with referrals for rentals coming in from satisfied renters.

“I can’t say that we’ve ever had a complaint,” Byers said. “Having the option to go somewhere, and having it be clean, have it smell good — with the general perception of a portable toilet in the public’s eyes being generally negative — we can provide an option where we can tell a bride or an event planner that, yes, this is a portable toilet, but you won’t be looking down into the tank with a flushable bowl.”

Byers said if you want to line up units for your reception, it’s best to call Big John and schedule them ahead of time. The units are rented almost every week and are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Pricing depends on rental times and how far they can be delivered. Quotes can be requested online.

“At the end of the day, they are portable toilets, but we do our best to make them not stand out in that sense,” Byers said. “These are nice options, clean options, and a more formal option for you to have at your wedding. It’s not a carnival, or a concert, it’s a different experience.” n they’reLoveandmarriage:They’vebeencelebratedinsongforcenturies—but nottheonlypairthatgotogetherlikeahorseandcarriage. perfectWhilemelodiesandmatrimonygohandinhand,wecan’tforgetanother couple:Churchesandweddings.Afterall,it’shardtothinkaboutaweddingandnotstartsinging“”Goin’tothechapelandwe’regonnagetmarried…” Forcenturies,churcheshavebeentheplacepeoplegotosay“Ido,”where pipeorganspumpoutMendelssohn’s“WeddingMarch”orWagner’s“BridalChorus,”wherebrideswalkdowntheaisleontheirwaytothealtar,wherevowsare exchangedandafuturetogetherbegins.

Andwhiletimeandchangingtasteshavegivenusagrowinglistofplaces togetmarried—barns,backyardsandbeaches,justtonameafew— many couplesstillprefertohaveandtoholdontotheideaofachurchceremony.

But what’s it take to have a churchwedding?Somechurches haverulesandguidelinesabout whocangetmarriedinachurch. Ifyouwanttogetmarriedata church,therearesomethingsto consider.

CatholicManychurches,suchastheChurch,requirethatone orbothhalvesofacouplearea memberofthechurchtheywant togetmarriedat.Otherchurches mayallowanyonetoutilizetheir facilities,butwithcertainrequirements—chiefamongthem beingpre-marriagecounseling sessions.

CHURCHEScont’dtopage30

At First Presbyterian Church in Sterling, the Rev. Christina Berry has performed weddings for both members and non-members, as well as for same-sex couples. There are still some checks and balances, though. Most major denominations have church boards (called sessions in the Presbyterian Church) made up of elected members who ultimately vote and decide on whether their church can be utilized for ceremonies.

So far, though Berry hasn’t had a problem yet with her church’s session boards.

“There are many churches who only want to do weddings in the church for members,” Berry said. “There are lots of good reasons for that. We think of the marriage ceremony as part of worship. You don’t want to do something that your tradition thinks of as sacred, so I get why they don’t do that.

But I think of it as, if people want to get married, and they want to get married in a church, they have some sense that’s there some connection with God with that, and I want to welcome that.”

Berry has prospective couples go through three pre-marriage counseling sessions. The first two are centered on the finer details of a marriage, and the third wraps in all they’ve learned with the planning of the actual ceremony. With it taking place in a church, there will be at least some form of religious aspect to the ceremony.

“We think about life together, and talk about how to divide up chores, and how do you decide who does what,” Berry said. “How do you deal with the in-laws? And money? Sometimes they have children from previous marriages, and how do you decide things about that?”

Berry said, “What I tell them is that I want to give them tools to use once you’re married, and things that you’ll think of later. I know they may not pay much attention about it now, but they will later.”

The nondenominational Abiding Word Church in Sterling also opens its doors to anyone who would like to be married there. However, the number of counseling sessions differ based on whether one is a church member or not: Non-members are required to have only one session, while members must have at least four. It’s a system that’s worked well for its pastor, the Rev. Scott Porter, who has performed nearly 500 weddings in 36 years.

Porter looks at making the church and his time available as an opportunity to reach out to people and be a blessing to them, he said.

“In pre-marriage counseling, we talk about communica- tion, sex and money, because those are the big three things that lead to divorce,” Porter said. “We’ll go through those things and talk about that. Sometimes I’ll do a questionnaire with them about compatibility and expectations. When you go into a wedding, you come from your family, the other one comes from their family, and even though there may be some similarities, there’s still some differences.”

Having picked the minds of hundreds of aspiring couples, Porter and other pastors have seen a lot, and they bring that experience with them during the counseling sessions, helping couples identify and address potential issues before the big day. Do they want children? And if so, how many, and when do they want them?

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“Communication can be the biggest problem in marriage,” Porter said. “You have to talk about things. Sometimes you don’t always get what you want and may have to give a little.”

The Catholic Church is the most populous church in the world, and religion plays a major role in not just a wedding, but also life after the wedding. Not only does the local Catholic parish become involved in the planning stages, but the diocese in which the parish is a part also does as well. The Rockford Diocese encompasses northwest Illinois from East Dubuque to Erie to McHenry to Aurora; with surrounding dioceses centered in Davenport, Dubuque, Joliet, Madison and Peoria, as well as the Archdioceses of Chicago and Milwaukee.

Preparation exercises are done both at the parish and

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“The priest is the guide who walks them through the journey,” said Kassandra Salgado, the Rockford Diocese’s coordinator of outreach and marriage preparation. “They will typically do one-on-one meetings to see if you’re both ready and able and committed to this. There are also some practical skills, like communication and finances, and those elements that get sprinkled in through the church or through our office.”

Once a couple gets married in a Catholic church, they become representatives of the church in how they go about their life, hence stressing the importance of the role religion plays in the wedding.

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“The rite of marriage, when a wedding is done in a Catholic church by a Catholic priest, allows the presence and the need for God in their marriage.” Stahl said. “When you acknowledged God and the need for God, hopefully you remember that for the years to come, and that relationship can help in the process.”

The Rockford Diocese enjoys honoring its longtime couples, and has an annual Silver and Gold Mass in August for those observing anniversaries of 25, 50, 55, 60, 65, or more than 70 years of marriage. The Mass in recent years has taken place at St. Mary Catholic Church in Huntley and performed by Bishop David J. Malloy.

“They are amazing witnesses to the love and the relationship that people have,” Stahl said.

If you’re not sure whether a church will perform a wedding, don’t be afraid to contact the church and ask. There will be new things to learn in the process, but the churches, and the officiants who perform the ceremonies, want to make sure their time is being invested wisely, and will have meaning for the rest of couples’ time together.

With so many venue options available these days, Berry would like to see the church once again play a predominant role in weddings.

“It’s already a beautiful setting, and you don’t need to add a lot,” Berry said. “I think it’s wonderful to get married in a church, if you have any sense that if your life has anything to do with the sacred, or the holy or the spiritual.” n

After what seems like a lifetime of planning, from “Will you marry me?” to “You may now kiss the bride,” newlyweds can finally begin their new life together — for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Like any journey in life, there will be bumps in the road, tough times that may seem insurmountable at first but that will become invaluable life lessons as time goes by. But with any luck — and love — those obstacles will be few when compared to a lifetime of happiness. Through it all, couples share those ups and downs together: a mutual bond of memories and experiences that define their marriage.

Along the way, there will be milestones to mark and anniversaries to celebrate — silver, golden, platinum, and if time is kind, diamond.

But how do they do it? What’s it take to celebrate the better and persevere through the worse? Sauk Valley Media recently asked some area couples — some who are still on their way to the silver, and others who can see a diamond just around the corner — for their advice on love, life and marriage, and they kindly agreed to share what they’ve learned along the way. From words of love to decades of devotion to agreeing to disagree (without being disagreeable), these couples have found that building a successful relationship takes work, but it’s a labor of love that’s well worth the effort. So let’s turn the page to see how their marriages have managed to pass the test of time with flying colors …

Forecast: Sunshine and happiness

Everything’s coming up proses for local couple