Carnival & Fair News

Karla Kinsel Anderson's fairytale wedding was a carnival of delights. Her nuptials took place this summer on the Butler Amusements midway at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, California.

Anderson became part of the carnival business at age 13, joining her father, who had left work in the oil fields for life on the midway. She spent her summers working in Butler's cotton candy wagon, first with Jill Butler Moyer and later with Helen Stevenson Mathews, whom she describes as her “greatest mentor.”

She later helped Mathews run games before attending college. Afterward, Jo Butler invited her to work in the Butler office. Anderson says she has now been “actively a part of Butler my whole life.”

With that history in mind, when she became engaged to her now-husband, Edward Anderson, she knew she wanted a carnival wedding. “I wanted to get married on the midway, and I wanted a summer wedding, a classy-trashy wedding,” she laughs. “I wanted to get married with everyone on the Butler team present, including all my H-2B workers who have been a part of my life for 26 years.”

Although Anderson did not meet her husband in the carnival business, the couple met during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was fully on board with the midway wedding plans. Today, he operates a fabrication shop, providing beautification and fabrication work for the midway.

Because Anderson works year-round in the Butler office, the couple typically does not travel with the carnival. There are two exceptions: the California State Fair at Cal Expo and the Alameda County Fair. At both events, Anderson oversees the Sky Rides.

The bride-to-be knew her wedding venue should be at one of those two fairs, although she notes, “I wasn't too particular. My husband and I were engaged for two years before Sean Butler asked me when I wanted to get married, and I said, ‘You tell me.'”

That is when planning for the carnival wedding moved into high gear. “Crystal Black, my assistant, and all the third-generation Butler carnival folks made my wedding happen, along with Jill and Lance Moyer, our CEO,” Anderson explains. “Lance gave me away. I had worked with him since I was 13, and I even made Eddie ask him for my hand in marriage,” she laughs.

Anderson especially wants to thank the Moyers, Sean Butler, who officiated the ceremony, and Black, who coordinated the entire event, along with the “whole third-generation Butler family who did my hair, makeup, wedding cake, and operated the Sky Ride.”

She says the wedding “truly turned out to be magical. I just wanted a celebration with all of us in the same spot, a show party with a twist.”

Instead of walking down the aisle, Anderson made a more fitting entrance. “I rode into my wedding on the Sky Ride. Then Lance walked me to the altar, which was in front of the Eagle 16 Wheel. We had 150 chairs filled with guests and many standing. It was a really large crowd.”

The wedding began at 7:30 p.m. to avoid the intense summer heat in Pleasanton. “It turned out to be a perfect time of day with perfect weather, about 75 degrees. We couldn't have asked for it to be better,” she says.

Anderson wore a formal white wedding gown with a long train. After the ceremony, the newlyweds took their first ride on the Ferris wheel as a married couple. Then came the wedding feast.

“We held our reception at the Farmhouse Restaurant, a large restaurant located right on the fairgrounds that is perfect for holding events. It has a full bar. We had a DJ, dancing, and our H-2B workers put together a huge taco bar.”

According to Anderson, the event was every bit as special, delightful, and filled with friendship and love as she had imagined. “I keep using the word ‘magical' because it really was,” she says. “My husband was very supportive of the idea. After all, all my friends here have accepted him, and he fits right in.”

She describes Butler Amusements as “so family-oriented. The company has been a part of my extended family for almost my entire life, and I love them and this company. The company is my purpose. I never had kids, so this is my purpose. It's wonderful to have a complete extended family.”

Her biological family blended right into the celebration, including her 86-year-old mother. “They didn't realize before how much the Butler family cares about me and how much I care about them,” she notes. “They are just not familiar with the carnival. None of my four brothers or two sisters are in the industry. It was just my father and me who joined the midway.”

With both her biological family and adopted carnival family surrounding her, Anderson sums up the day as “an absolutely joyous event.” Just like the carnival itself.