Logo design by Joshua Williams and Bree Fleming – photo by Amy Springer
Talk about a bluegrass wedding!
The upcoming nuptials between Megan Darby, Director of the bluegrass music program at Glenville State College in West Virginia, and Luke McKnight, grandson of mandolin legend Jesse McReynolds, promises to be a big old time. And they are asking everyone to join them on September 18 at Uncle Pen’s Cabin, just by the Bill Monroe Museum in Bean Blossom, IN. The couple will be performing at the Uncle Pen festival on the 17th as the closing act, and they will invite the audience to join them the next day at the cabin, where Larry Efaw will officiate the ceremony.
Luke and Megan met bluegrass cute, as we detailed in an earlier interview last summer. McKnight caught young Megan’s eye when she was just nine years old, as she told us back in 2020…
“My parents and I were at the bluegrass festival in Georgetown, Ohio in 1999. We never missed a Jim & Jesse show if they were booked where we were. That day Jesse McReynolds introduced his grandson, Luke McKnight, to the show. He was debuting his recently recorded album SUPERGRASS 2000, and he quickly became my first bluegrass ‘crush’.
I had my eye on Luke at Bean Blossom and other festivals throughout the years. But back then my Daddy would tell me, ‘that boy is too wild for you, Megan,’ but he always complimented his music!”
Both being bluegrass professionals, their paths crossed from time to time, and they considered each other friends, but romance began to bloom when both parties found themselves single following unsuccessful marriages a couple of years ago. Megan had called on Luke to speak to her Glenville students about the life of a musician on the road, and he mentioned to her in conversation that he had a large dollhouse that had belonged to his daughter, that her young daughter might enjoy. He drove it from Tennessee to West Virginia, and the two were soon an item.
Now McKnight has moved to Glenville, WV where he now works at the college, and he and Miss Megan are inseparable.
So if you’ll be at the Bill Monroe Music Park for the Uncle Pen Festival in September, Megan and Luke would like you to join them and witness their vows.
Though this has all happened quickly, Luke tells us that he feels he is a lucky man. “It took 39 years to know what happy really means….. I am blessed beyond words.”
Megan says that it will be a quick and simple ceremony, which will be beautiful no matter who comes over. “All that matters to us is that we have God, our girls, and parents, and any family and friends there.”
But if may be at Bean Blossom, y’all come! The family will provide coffee and homemade cookies for all who take part.
The couple have formed a non-profit organization to help preserve early country and traditional mountain music alive, called Miss Megan and Luke McKnight: Archiving Appalachia. They ask that anyone inclined to remember their wedding with a gift, to please consider a donation.
They can be sent to:
Archiving Appalachia
PO Box 24
Glenville, WV 26351
