By Sallie Satterthwaite
Lifestyle Columnist

Ordinarily, an article like the following would appear elsewhere in this paper:

A wedding of Fayette County interest took place Aug. 7 in Jefferson County, Ga., as Joyce Drinkwater of Louisville, Ga., owner and editor-publisher of The News and Farmer, married Cal Beverly of Peachtree City, editor-publisher of The Citizen.

The couple exchanged vows under a camp meeting tabernacle at Mt. Moriah Campground near Matthews. The communion service was led by the Rev. Danny Treadway of Louisville United Methodist Church, the bride's congregation, and the Rev. Mark Baldwin of Peachtree Christian Fellowship, where the groom is a member.

Dwain Little directed the chancel choir of Louisville UMC. A “Gospel Sing and Celebration” followed dinner-on-the-grounds.

But ordinary this story is not.

Those may be the facts about Cal and Joyce's wedding, but they lack the old/new, high tech/homespun yin/yang of the event itself and the way it came to be. One could hardly script a more symbolic bridge between millennia.

In some ways, this pairing could not be more — as Joyce herself described it last winter — “21st century: two-town, two-career.”

Let me back up a little. Cal was extremely interested, and hung on my every word when I told him about our daughter Jean's having met her husband-to-be via Christian Connections, an Internet dating service.

Little did I know then that he had met Joyce in precisely the same way, at precisely the same time, their relationship also moving swiftly from cyberspace to telephone calls into the wee hours.

Not surprisingly, the fact that both are newspaper publishers provided a base of understanding between them. Joyce said one of her girlfriends put it best: “Here was someone who `gets me'... and still likes me.”

But Cal's memo breaking the news to his staff revealed the dilemma their professions created: “Joyce has deep roots in her community and has no plans to sell her paper,” the only one in Jefferson County. She's a very hands-on owner, covering meetings, writing stories and columns, selling ads, doing layout.

By the same token, he said, “I have no plans to leave [The Citizen.]”

Couldn't they work together? “She told me clearly she wants to marry me, not work for me.” And vice versa.

The reactions of their children were mixed, to say the least. Cal's are adults, and mostly supportive if cautious. Joyce's boys are 13 and 9, and seem to like Cal a lot.

And yes, the difference in the couple's ages has raised an eyebrow or two.

There are philosophical differences too. You may have noticed that Cal is a conservative. Make that A Conservative. Joyce calls herself a “moderate, at least.”

Their hometowns are dissimilar. Located about an hour southwest of Augusta, Louisville is not on the way to anywhere, and I have yet to find anyone (other than Cal) who had visited there before Aug. 7. It's a jewel of a town set in a county whose emerald fields belie the drought.

What a heritage. Modeled after Philadelphia in 1786, specifically for the purpose, Louisville was Georgia's first capital, from 1796 to 1806. Broad Street, spine of a vibrant downtown, is split by a strip of shade trees.

On it still stands an oak-timbered open-air slave trading pavilion built in the 1790s, the only such market remaining in the state.

Then there's Cal's town, incorporated in 1959, in a county with more subdivisions than Joyce's has gnats.

But the bottom line here (and I'm not revealing anything not mentioned during the wedding ceremony itself) these were two lonely people in search of companionship. They hold in common what matters most, Joyce said: their faith and a conviction that “we were brought together by God and the rest will take care of itself.”

So, I've sketched for you how it happened. Let me try to paint the wedding.

We drove to the campground between fields filled with hayrolls baking in the sun. Cars were already parking under the dark trees, desperate for shade. To no avail: the thermometer on our outside mirror read 101.

Women in bright dresses were carrying dishes into the little church annex, mercifully air-conditioned — then cheerfully stepping back out into the noon heat. Dave observed later that the only people complaining about the heat were the “city folks” from Fayette County.

A dozen or so ceiling fans tried valiantly to move the air under the tabernacle — a vast permanent open roof similar to the original built about 1829 — where a congregation gathered on wooden benches and fluttered cardboard fans with a picture of the bride and groom.

The choir had been there rehearsing, since 10, and, I learned later, most stayed through the hymn to sing following the ceremony. We joined them in “Blessed Assurance” and “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”

Joyce wore a soft cafe au lait two-piece dress and the kind of hat usually described as a “picture hat,” and carried a mixed bouquet of flowers. Her younger son struck the noon hour by tugging the rope on an ancient bell, and her niece, a dimpled doll in a long flowered dress, strewed petals as Joyce entered on Cal's arm.

The scene could not have been more traditional and old-timey, but with surprises: Gospel music to an electronic keyboard. Galvanized washtubs of lemonade and tea awash with ice cubes. Covered dishes and homemade ice cream.

The bride's father's gleaming Honda Gold Wing three-wheeled motorcycle.

Several generations of Jefferson countians gathered in heat that wilted sunflowers. Several more rested cool underground on the gentle hill above the tabernacle.

The choir's “I wanna live in a Lord-built house” inspired a few guests to wonder where the house would be.

Enough to “live in a Lord-built house with a structure built on love, with a rock foundation under me and the Heavenly Father above!”

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