Chris and Stacy Graham were married at MountainFest in 2014.
By Samantha Cart
Gone are the days of long, white dresses, traditional vows and quiet church weddings. Contemporary brides and grooms are tying the knot in a variety of alternative locations, and West Virginia’s MountainFest ceremonies are a unique example of the destination wedding trend.
Sponsored by Triple S Harley-Davidson in Morgantown and the West Virginia Department of Tourism, MountainFest is an annual motorcycle festival held at Mylan Park and the Coal Bucket Saloon in Morgantown, WV. Over the past 10 years, the festival has attracted thousands of people from across the region to enjoy three days of musical performances, live entertainment and motorcycle exhibits.
Since its inception in 2005, three couples have chosen to get hitched on-site at Triple S Harley-Davidson and the main stage at MountainFest. The weddings took place in 2010, 2013 and 2014, and the first two couples to wed in the midst of thousands of other motorcycle and music lovers chose this unusual destination because they first met at MountainFest. According to Cliff Sutherland, a principal dealer at Triple S Harley-Davidson and one of the two remaining original MountainFest, LLC board members, each couple approached the board about holding their ceremony during the festival. The board meticulously plans the event each year, but they set up a time and place in the schedule for each ceremony. Because of the strict performance timeline, the ceremonies had to be 10-20 minutes maximum.
“We make sure each couple understands what they can and cannot do,” says Sutherland. “MountainFest is a family event, and we don’t want any inappropriate language or clothing, but those are really the only guidelines. We let them know the schedule ahead of time so we can fit them in between the bands and stunt teams.”
Unlike many modern wedding venues, the couples were not charged a fee to get married at MountainFest. Of the three couples, only the first, Jerry and Linda Sheets, was married on the main stage at Mylan Park, and the board allowed the best man, maid of honor and the couple’s parents on-site for free. Anyone else who wanted to attend the ceremony had to buy a ticket to the event. The other two couples, Scott and Tracy Shroades and Chris and Stacy Graham, were married at Triple S Harley-Davidson on the Willie G stage, a five-minute drive from the festival, for no charge.
Although attendance has varied over the last 10 years, the three-day festival has hosted as many as 64,000 participants. Event veterans stay updated on the year’s upcoming entertainment via the MountainFest Web site, where each wedding was advertised and added to the official schedule.
“Anything that’s going on at the event, we add to the schedule,” says Sutherland. “Adding the weddings is a way of giving back to these people, making them feel special and making it their day. If this event means enough to someone to want to get married here, then MountainFest must be special to them, and we want to give them a permanent memento by putting it in writing.”
Chris and Stacy Graham of West Lafayette, Ohio were married onstage at Triple S Harley-Davidson on July 24, 2014 at the 10th annual MountainFest Motorcycle Rally. Their ceremony was officiated by American rock band Jackyl’s frontman, Jesse James Dupree. Since the first time Chris saw Jackyl perform in 1992, he has been traveling up and down the East Coast for the band’s performances, which was the couple’s original reason for attending MountainFest in 2013. After attending the event, the couple agreed this would become an annual trip for them. “We both enjoyed the concert, but we also loved walking around Mylan Park and riding the bike around, exploring West Virginia,” says Stacy.
Five months after MountainFest 2013, on Christmas Day, Chris proposed, and the couple began to plan their dream wedding. It took Chris only a few hours after the proposal to search the Internet for Jackyl’s 2014 concert dates, and in a matter of days, the couple had contacted Sutherland to see if Dupree would be interested in officiating.
“It’s pretty crazy around here during that time, and the couple is usually in charge of planning everything after we set up the place and time,” Sutherland says. “But I called Jesse James Dupree because he’s a friend of mine, and he agreed to do the ceremony.”
While Chris’ family was not at all surprised by the couple’s choice of wedding venue, Stacy’s family was shocked when they found out the wedding was not going to be at all traditional. “Chris’ family knows he loves motorcycles and rock and roll music, and he is always unique with everything he does, so they expected him to be different,” Stacy says. “But I thought my mother was going to have a heart attack when I told her I was riding on the back of the bike to the stage, and I was not wearing a white dress.”
Stacy’s bridal attire consisted of a black, sleeveless Harley-Davidson dress shirt, jeans and leather boots with an orange and black bandana to match her orange bouquet. Her shirt was adorned with diamond skulls to match the Harley-Davidson diamond earrings Chris bought her for their three-year anniversary and her diamond skull necklace. “My mom showed up to the wedding and was happy when she saw me and my wedding attire. She was OK with my outfit by then,” Stacy says. “Our friends loved the idea of a biker wedding with skulls and supported all the plans we made.”
The biker theme was carried out from head to toe, from the attire to the music to the photographs on the couple’s 2005 Road King bagger motorcycle. But after the couple said “I do,” the show had to go on. Theirs was no typical wedding reception, as the couple and their guests rode down to Mylan Park immediately after their pictures for the Jackyl concert—a perfect ending to their perfect day.
MountainFest is marketed as “the most exciting motorcycle event on the East Coast” and serves as a way for cyclists, music lovers, newlyweds and West Virginians to share and experience the Mountain State with the rest of the world. According to Sutherland, only 40 percent of the people who attend the event are even bikers, and they draw a diverse crowd. “We have bikers, but we also have music lovers and people who want to watch the stunt teams. You don’t have to ride a motorcycle to appreciate somebody jumping 200 feet—it’s still entertainment,” Sutherland says.
In conjunction with the Greater Morgantown Convention and Visitors Bureau, wild and wonderful MountainFest is presented by MountainFest, LLC, a nonprofit organization comprised of Northern West Virginia residents with a desire to share the magic of West Virginia with bike enthusiasts from across the country. All proceeds from the festival go to the nonprofit Mylan Park and have funded several community projects, such as building a completely rubberized sport service field for baseball players with disabilities—only the third of its kind in the entire country—and a baseball and softball complex used by four area high schools. In the past nine years, the MountainFest motorcycle rally has contributed more than $500,000 to a variety of nonprofit organizations, including Stepping Stones, PACE Enterprises, the Girl Scouts of America, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of North Central West Virginia and the Alternative Learning Center.
MountainFest 2015 is scheduled for July 22-26, and confirmed headliners include Marshall Tucker, The Charlie Daniels Band and Travis Tritt.
