Mendy DeWitt and Michael Vincent of Fordsville, Ky., were among the couples who shared the stage with Ms. Wigington and Ms. Martin on March 20. Though comfortable with marrying before the crowd, Mr. Vincent, 42, and Ms. DeWitt, 44, weren’t as keen to share their first kiss as newlyweds with the assembled rock fans.
When it was their turn, “I put my flowers up in front of us,” said Ms. DeWitt, who wore a champagne lace dress. Mr. Vincent wore a wine-colored corduroy jacket.
“I guess I just wanted a moment of privacy,” she added.
The couple met in March 2020, the same year that Ms. DeWitt’s first husband, Steven DeWitt, died of a heart attack. Mr. Vincent, an adoption specialist for the state of Kentucky, knew Ms. DeWitt through her family; she is the mother of six children, ages 3 to 26, half of them adopted.
“It started as a friendship,” said Mr. Vincent, the father of a 15-year-old son from a previous marriage, which ended in divorce in 2015, and a 1-year-old son from a previous relationship. He added that, when Mr. DeWitt passed in July 2020, “I felt a need to reach out to her, because I know what it’s like to deal with loss.”
By 2021, he and Ms. DeWitt were a couple. That summer, Mr. Vincent, who was living in Bowling Green, Ky., moved into Ms. DeWitt’s house in Fordsville. The two by then knew that they wanted to get married, and without the fuss of planning a wedding.
“Vegas is kind of the thing people do around here, but then the festival came up on one of the elopement groups I’m in on Facebook,” Ms. DeWitt said. Mr. Vincent loved the idea. “I was like, ‘Hell, yeah!’” he said. “We like the music from when we were teenagers, and I was a big fan of Candlebox,” which performed its 90s-heyday hits, including their favorite song “Far Behind,” to close the festival.