“People thought we were crazy,” Richie DeMott recalled. “They’d tell us now, ‘Richie, I thought you were crazy.’”

If anyone still believes that Gin Creek — the wedding venue envisioned by DeMott and his brother, Doug DeMott, in 1998 — is a crazy idea, perhaps an award announced this week will silence the critics.

WeddingWire, a national resource for wedding professionals and engaged couples, recently awarded Gin Creek its 2012 Bride’s Choice Award for ceremony and reception venue.

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry, according to a release from WeddingWire. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, Gin Creek was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Gin Creek is recognized as part of the top 5 percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of more than 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada, WeddngWire said. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

Gin Creek is a 42-acre site just off Highway 37 West at the Bay community near Hartsfield. It opened in 1999 and now offers two wedding facilities, each of which has two sites at which the couple can exchange their vows.

DeMott said each of the sites offers a different theme. A gazebo on DeMott Lake presents an air of Southern aristocracy reminiscent of an antebellum plantation. Across the lake, a vine-covered pergola offers a more rustic beauty. In the newer area, a copper-covered gazebo and a pergola designed with Venice, Italy, in mind both overlook a second small lake.

DeMott said Gin Creek has already hosted two simultaneous weddings on five occasions, each time finding ways to improve service. Those improvements are showing up in changes to the plans of the newer area, which isn’t quite finished yet. A centerpiece of the newer site is a huge, permanent tent for the reception. It will seat 800 people, DeMott said.

“It’s one of the few places in Colquitt County where you can have a wedding reception and everybody’s in the same room,” he said.

DeMott touts Gin Creek’s amenities and services — from the horse-drawn carriage to multiple plugs in the bridesmaids’ dressing room to the eight restored shotgun houses that serve as cabins for the bride and groom’s guests.

“Moms come in and say, ‘You thought of everything!’” DeMott said.

The award pleases DeMott, he said, because it gets the word out to a national audience about what’s available at Gin Creek.

“The national recognition we received is a tribute to the staff of Gin Creek,” he said. “From the housekeeping crew to those who prepare Gin Creek for that special day to the wedding director to the sound director, it’s a tribute to them and it’s a tribute to our family who supported us in this endeavor over 12 years ago.”

The DeMotts have big plans left to complete, too. In addition to the new site that’s almost finished, they plan a chapel so weddings can be performed indoors if weather turns bad. And they’ve started work on a farm winery.

Grapes were planted last year and produced well for a first-year crop, DeMott said. They expect to have a small supply of bottled wine by fall, but the winery building itself won’t begin construction until next year.

The winery project is named RoseMott Vineyards, after their mother, Dorothy Rose DeMott Turner, who gave them the land on which Gin Creek now stands.