A few years ago, I listened in on a conversation between a couple of sisters-in-law lamenting how much planning had gone into their children’s weddings. The to-do lists, the organizing, the coordinating. I pondered planning a wedding versus an annual ranch production sale.

Invitations/Advertisement. For a wedding, one might send out a “Save the Date” postcard and an official invitation. For the sale, we first develop the full-color ad that will go into the American Red Angus Journal, High Plains Journal, Kansas Stockman, and other publications including local newspapers. That ad will be turned into a Save the Date postcard to be sent to our 150 mailing list recipients. Later, it will be the center of a tri-fold mailing including the EPDs (Expected Progeny Differences) of all the bulls and heifers we will sell. Finally, it will become the cover of the full-sized 24-page catalog.

Venue. For a wedding, the church and the reception hall must be secured as well as possibly local hotels for out-of-town guests. We also inform out-of-towners of our local hotels. We reserve the restaurant where we feed our crew breakfast, the Salebarn Café where we host lunch for crew and buyers, and the steakhouse where we put on a buyer’s appreciation supper. We also book the local salebarn which has its weekly sale on Tuesday before our Thursday sale. That leaves the salebarn staff a quick turn-around for removing, shall we say, a lot of recycled vegetation, for spreading straw in the holding pens to keep our cattle clean overnight, and for tossing wood shavings into the sale ring to camouflage the, um, recycled vegetation there.

Catering. For a wedding (at least in the Giefer Tribe), there is a big meal after the wedding. As aforementioned, there are three catered meals involved in the sale.

Dance. Okay, we don’t have a dance after the sale. But we might look into it someday.

Clothing. For the wedding, dresses must be purchased or made, and suits or tuxes must be purchased or rented. Each member of the sale crew wears a white button-down shirt with our logo embroidered on the right chest. Those shirts must be washed (after encountering all that recycled vegetation) and ironed for use next year. It takes half a day to iron twenty wrinkly shirts! We also provide embroidered caps for crew and buyers.

Transportation. The wedding party is often transported in a rented conveyance such as a limousine. The cattle all must be hauled from our ranch to the salebarn. This year, that involved seven loads from ranch to salebarn the day before the sale. Before getting into the trailer, the bulls get a little brushing to knock off excessive, uh, recycled vegetation.

Vaccinations. Last I checked, no vaccinations were required for the wedding party or guests. Before the sale, we vaccinate and deworm all the long-yearling bulls, the weanling heifers, and the weanling horses we sell. There is also the Breeding Soundness Exam for the bulls. The only correlation I can think of for this process is the stag party. When it’s all over, the participants might feel about the same.

Deliveries. All the rented apparel from the wedding must be returned. We deliver any bulls, heifers, and horses purchased by buyers who didn’t bring a trailer to the sale. Some years, that takes a week and involves multiple out-of-state trips. This year, it only took a day for three deliveries within eighty miles of home.

After considering all of the above, I decided that putting on an annual ranch production sale is like planning a double wedding. On Christmas.