Old Souls in Love

Vintage glamour and a love of all things local combine as two West Virginia natives marry in a celebration straight out of the Roaring ’20s

Jessica Miller & Michael Lipscomb
Davis | 06.29.13

written by Rachel Coon
photographed by The Oberports

You’ve heard it before—two people from West Virginia fall in love at a West Virginia University football game. But Jessica Miller and Michael Lipscomb’s beginning was anything but the same old, same old. Jessica was at a party following the Mountaineers’ 2011 Spring Game and had proudly declared to her friends that she was taking a year off dating to focus on her real estate career and the 1903 Victorian home she was buying. Cue the tall, handsome guy everyone called “Slim.” “He was flirting with me a little bit,” Jessica says. “He’s a contractor and likes old houses and was very curious about the house I was buying.” They chatted, and Mike says, “I was also buying an old house at the time, so we had a lot in common.” He was the first guy Jessica had met who shared her passion for vintage. “I thought he was really cute, but I told myself, ‘No, not dating,’” she laughs. The pair went their merry ways.

That Monday at work flowers arrived on Jessica’s desk with a card from someone she didn’t know. “I thought, ‘Who is Michael Lipscomb?’” she says. After all, she’d only met this “Slim” guy and she hadn’t told him where she worked. She called a few friends and solved the mystery, then reminded herself she wasn’t dating. “But he was a really awesome guy, and I did kind of want to get to know him,” she says. So she called him. “I’m sure I sounded like a lunatic. I told him, ‘I’m not dating this year, but if you want to hang out as friends, that would be cool.’”

completely us

Mike took Jessica to an antiques auction for their first outing, and the friendship took root after Jessica closed on her house and started calling Mike for expert advice. He’d drop by to help, and the couple got to know each other over dinners and house adventures and projects. Jessica made it nearly a year as just friends.

It was Christmas time and she didn’t have a tree yet, so she and Mike picked one out. He put the lights on for her, and Jessica says, “I looked at him putting the star on my tree and I thought, ‘Oh my god, he’s the love of my life. I’m going to marry him.’” One afternoon a few months later, as the couple’s parents were getting to know each other in the couple’s backyard, Mike and Jessica shared a moment inside.

He dropped to one knee in front of the fireplace and asked Jessica to be his wife. He’d scoured estate sales across the country and finally found a one-of-a-kind emerald and yellow gold ring. “I’ve always loved gemstones, especially emeralds—I mean, Jackie O. had an emerald wedding ring—so when he opened that ring box, I think I actually stopped breathing,” Jessica laughs. Then it was yes and tears and laughter before they rushed out to tell their parents.

Jessica considered hiring a planner for their June 2013 wedding because she knew she and Mike would be busy with work, but she decided their Roaring Twenties soiree was too special to hand over. “I really needed to put my heart and soul into it, and Mike was an amazing help,” she says. “We wanted everything to be completely us.”

vintage vibe

“Vintage has been the undertone of my entire life,” Jessica says. “I was born loving movies from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, and after high school I became an actress because I have always been enamored with old Hollywood.” She lived in Los Angeles for years, exploring the Hollywood of her dreams, and she envisioned a vintage wedding someday. When Mike came into the picture and they chose the 1920s as their theme, she started looking for a dress everywhere from Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., to Portland and Seattle.

With a little luck, she was shopping Nordstrom online for shoes when she happened upon a vintage ivory and gold silk chiffon gown. “I was like, ‘Hello, lover,’” Jessica laughs. She ordered it and the day it arrived she rushed to try it on and instantly knew. “I loved the fit, the comfort—it swayed and moved with me. I wanted to be able to dance and laugh and move around.

I wanted it to feel natural yet glamorous. And I liked that it was gold because I’m obsessed with anything and everything gold,” she says. She found a vintage-inspired feather headpiece on Etsy and strapped on gold Michael Kors heels. “I wore my coral Chanel lipstick in honor of my grandmother Carmen who was my best friend and taught me the power of the perfect coral lipstick.” She wanted her bridesmaids to look like champagne, and they also looked stunning in sparkly gold dresses.

sweet surprises

It poured the day before the wedding and the ground was still wet, so the couple decided to move their ceremony from Pendleton Point Overlook at Blackwater Falls to the reception venue at Canaan Valley Institute. “We wanted the 1920s speakeasy vibe because people these days don’t give themselves enough time to ever feel glamorous—to let themselves strut around the room, drink a glass of champagne, and be fabulous—and the mud was not conducive to that,” Jessica says. Before heading in, Mike made one request as the sun peeked out before the ceremony—photos on a rock overlooking the river.

It was unplanned and worth it, he says, and perhaps almost as memorable for him as the first look was. “When I turned around and saw Jessica, I was smiling ear to ear.” The couple’s 220 guests mingled and enjoyed Ms. Clara’s Prohibition Punch and Bootlegger’s Bathtub Bourbon Fizz before taking their seats. The couple’s pastor and friend gave a blessing and Jessica’s father officiated the ceremony, held on a stage surrounded by all of the couple’s loved ones. Jessica’s father had asked them to write down a few thoughts and used their words for the ceremony and vows—their feelings for each other, what they believed true love to be, and what marriage is. Friends read “A Lovely Love Story,” a tale of two dinosaurs the couple says was a perfect selection. When her dad pronounced them husband and wife, Jessica says, “It was the most overwhelmingly special moment of my life.” Then, as if the marriage needed another blessing, a double rainbow appeared outside. “It was like Technicolor, it was so bright,” Jessica says. “As if Mother Nature was giving her approval.”

local love

To thank their family and friends and to showcase their home state, the couple gave welcome boxes with Blackwater Falls postcards and West Virginia Fruit & Berry jam and cider. They hosted their rehearsal dinner at Sirianni’s Café in Davis and held a Sunday morning brunch at TipTop coffee shop in Thomas.

For the reception, Mike chose Mountain State Brewing Company’s Almost Heaven Amber Ale and Miner’s Daughter Oatmeal Stout, while Jessica turned to family friends and owners of Slight Indulgence in Morgantown for hand-selected wines and champagnes. Down to every last detail, the couple kept things local and tied to their lives.

It was a common theme, Mike says, that nearly all the vendors were people they’d known for years. Except the photographers, who Jessica says were worth it. “I hadn’t known Emily and Bobby forever like the rest of our vendors, but they fit the vibe of our life.” Jessica had known the florist her entire life, though, and told him, “You know me, you know I like the ’20s. I like fabulous, I don’t like costumey.” And he delivered—with a bridal bouquet of coral roses and feathers dusted in sparkling gold she wrapped in her great-aunt’s handkerchief. The caterer, another lifelong friend, put her own spin on a 1920s menu with a West Virginia Waldorf Salad with local blackberries and homemade champagne vinaigrette Jessica says appealed to her deep appreciation for the bubbles.

To round out the West Virginia cuisine, venison meatballs, smoked trout pâté, fresh local vegetables, and meat carving stations were also enjoyed. The three-tier coral wedding cake with gold accents was an Art Deco-inspired creation done by a friend as the newlyweds’ wedding gift. To capture the sound of a 1920s West Virginia speakeasy, Jessica and Mike hired The Hillbilly Gypsies, a local bluegrass band that plays around a single vintage microphone.

The newlyweds shared a traditional first dance to Harry Connick, Jr.’s “A Wink and a Smile” before The Hillbilly Gypsies took the stage. “They started playing this slow song that sounded real 1920s,” Jessica says. “The dance floor cleared out, and Mike took my hand and said, ‘Babe, time for our dance.’” It was just the two of them in the middle of the dance floor. “It was unplanned and I don’t know what the song was, but looking back, that’s the first dance I really remember. So much of our wedding was unexpected and unplanned, but it was absolutely perfect.