By Susan McNeil
As the saying goes, first comes love, then comes marriage, and now a baby carriage — but with a twist for an expectant couple from Smeaton.
Haley Lee and her husband Koltyn were married on Feb. 26 and are expecting their son in December. While that might be a story heard many times, this couple’s tale has a flying twist.
“We were on our way back from the ceremony, back to Smeaton for the reception, and one of our friends has an airplane and he just started swooping us,” explained Haley.
The flyover was unplanned — by the bridal couple, anyway — but they then decided to take advantage of Tyrel Seaman’s gesture and grabbed some wedding photos with him flying overhead.
In August when the couple was looking for interesting ways to announce the gender of their child who is due on Dec. 15, they called Seaman and got him back in the air again.
“We were trying to figure out how we should do our gender reveal and we had this big photo blown up in our living room and I thought, ‘Hmmm … I wonder if we could get him to do something for our gender reveal,’ ” said Haley.
Seaman was interested and recruited his brother Caleb, who poured out the coloured powder as the expectant couple stood in a canola field, watched closely by family and friends.
The audience was given blue and pink stickers and instructed to wear the colour they were cheering for, Team Boy or Team Girl.
Haley said that beforehand, most had predicted a girl but at the last moment, a few people changed their buttons to blue.
They chose the canola field because Koltyn is a farmer, and the crop is in their home quarter.
“They’re pretty excited because it is a boy and so I think they’re excited to have another little farmer come into the mix,” she said.
The gender of the baby might have been revealed to the family awaiting the first grandchild on both sides, but his name is a closely guarded secret.
Even this early in the game, another favourite colour is being pushed and that is green but likely combined with the yellow of the classic John Deere colour scheme.
“It’s strictly John Deere around here,” said Haley, laughing. “I came across this little swaddle that had green tractors on it and I showed Koltyn and said, ‘How do we not get a green tractor swaddle?’ ”
Other people are also building on the farmer plan and the new baby may also be outfitted in some Carhartt coveralls at a very young age.