Gwinnett Beer Fest
When: 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday
Where: Coolray Field, 2500 Buford Drive, Lawrenceville
Price: $45 beforehand, $50 day of event; $110 for VIP
Milton residents Guy Beck and Kelly Smith are both 52 years old, and they're madly in love.
On Saturday, they'll don Hawaiian attire and get hitched in front of a few thousand people. At a minor league baseball stadium. In the middle of Gwinnett Beer Fest.
"It's probably the greatest caper I've ever pulled off in my entire life," Beck said Wednesday.
Here's how he did it:
• In October, Beck and Smith met via the online dating site Plenty of Fish. They both lived in Gwinnett at the time and met (in person) at McCray's Tavern in Lawrenceville. They fell in love.
• Beck has brewed his own beer for more than a decade and, in 2009, was named Georgia's homebrewer of the year. He's well-loved and well-connected in the beer world. So about four months ago, he was hanging out with Randall Veugeler, whose design group puts out Suwanee magazine and organizes several local beer festivals, including Gwinnett Beer Fest.
• Beck mentioned he was lovestruck. Veugeler's reaction, paraphrased: "Dude, why don't you get married at the beer festival?"
• It made so much sense, at least to Beck. A ready-made venue. Live music, food and booze already taken care of. They'd both been married before and aren't especially concerned with tradition. The bride-to-be was a little hestitant to start with.
"At first I thought, oh, I don't know — at a beer fest?" Smith said. "But that's his passion."
So around 2:30 p.m. Saturday, in the 30 minutes or so between bands, Smith's brother will walk her down the "aisle" in the middle of Lawrenceville's Coolray Field. In her dress ordered from Honolulu and a beer hop-laden garter, she'll join Beck and his Hawaiian shirt on stage while about 30 loved ones — and 3,000 beer-guzzling festivalgoers — look on.
After a quick ceremony, the happy couple will go back to enjoying the festival, as well as a special "I Do Brew" created for the occasion by Alpharetta's Jekyll Brewing. There will be a small afterparty at their home, but no post-wedding getaway.
There's no need — they're already living their hoppily ever after.
"We've had a honeymoon the last seven months," Smith said.
