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Jessica Bullock and Liam Donnelly

A Blue Sky Wedding in Greensboro

By Marian Burros | June 15, 2019

How to plan your Vermont wedding ceremony and reception.

All photos by Hanna Photography

For the first week of June in the Northeast Kingdom, there were predictions of heavy rains, complete with lightning, not good news for the outdoor wedding being planned for Jessica Bullock and Liam Donnelly in Greensboro.

But they had made alternative indoor arrangements for this meticulously planned event. Jessica and Liam were determined to have a destination wedding—not for themselves but for their many guests from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, big city people who may never have experienced a taste of bucolic summer in Vermont’s Green Mountain landscape.

They didn’t have far to look: Liam’s family has a home in Greensboro. Once an historic inn, built in 1872, the Lakeview Inn overlooks Caspian Lake. It sits in the middle of beautifully manicured lawns and is surrounded by blooming gardens. The vistas go on for miles.

Greensboro is exactly what you would expect to find in a town whose population reaches 2,000 in the summer (when you include the village of Greensboro Bend). There’s a general store that sells everything from wine to wrenches. There is also a world-renowned brewery, an award-winning cheesemaker, a nine-hole golf course, a famous children’s circus and a theater, modeled after the Globe in England. Not to mention a sandy beach, tennis courts and easy access to biking and hiking and spectacular views.

What Greensboro does not have is a single traffic light, though the town’s very alert police make lots of money from people who don’t believe the speed limit signs.

In other words, the perfect summer destination for many of the 125 guests. So long as the storm held off.

Photo 1: Photo by Hanna Photography

Photo 2: Photo by Hanna Photography

Photo 3: Photo by Hanna Photography

Jessica, a newly minted lawyer who clerks for the Vermont Supreme Court, says planning the wedding became her second job, “though I wouldn’t call it work. I loved making the arrangements with Cathy and Scott and my parents.” Like any good lawyer, Jessica pays attention to detail, no matter how small.

Liam, who graduated from medical school last summer, is a resident at the University of Vermont Medical Center. He provided his own input and was spotted, more than once, meticulously painting the trim on the outside of the house so it would look perfect for the wedding. He sanded and stained every sign for the wedding and painstakingly stenciled each one with a peony, one of Jessica’s favorite flowers.

The couple had met in their sophomore year at the University of Vermont but decided they wanted to wait to marry until they graduated, not only from college but from graduate school, so they could enjoy everything that goes into planning a wedding.

“We knew from the moment we met each other that it was something very special,” Jessica said.

Jessica also knew she wanted to wear her grandmother’s wedding gown from 1960, the one her mother, Elizabeth, also wore when she married Bruce Bullock in 1986. The gown had been professionally preserved, but when the box was opened, the ivory wedding gown had yellowed and the beading had corroded. Her mother found a cleaner who was able to restore it. The long sleeves were removed for the June wedding; the sleeves turned into little purses that were given to Jessica’s sister and cousin. The reception and dinner were a reflectionof the talents and bounty of Vermont.

Photo by Hanna Photography

“Liam and I love choosing foods that are meaningful to us,” Jessica said, “such as Jasper Hill cheese—Winnemere, Harbison, Alpha Tolman and Bayley Hazen Blue. We also had Sweet Rowen’s Storm, and Spring Brook Farm’s Ashbrook. And one of the first things we wanted was Hill Farmstead beer, both Edward and Susan.” The two companies, about 10 minutes from the Lakeview Inn, are consistently awarded top billing worldwide.

The caterer, Charlie Hays from Burlington, obliged with local ingredients despite his company’s name, Global Bite Catering. Chicken Marbella, fl at iron steak and, for vegetarians, pesto pasta were chosen. Every guest’s dietary restrictions were duly noted. Cake & Crumb Bakery, in nearby Morrisville, made the vanilla wedding cake, chocolate ganache the center layer, the frosting made of Vermont maple buttercream. Th e mother-daughter team of Susan Camley and Julie Rodgers also baked an array of cupcakes frosted with salted caramel, maple chocolate ganache and vanilla buttercream, and maple buttercream.

In addition to the professional services that the bride and groom engaged, a host of talented friends and family provided all the unique touches. Liam’s sister, Lauren, and her college friend, Kristin Martin, made 200 cookies shaped like a loon, a black and white bird that frequents Caspian Lake, just across the road from the Donnelly home. Each guest received a carefully wrapped loon cookie.

The wedding invitations included detailed information, with recommendations on what to wear, with the warning: “If you are set on showing off your stilettos, heel protectors will be your best friends!” Another insert listed activities beginning the day before the wedding: golf with the groom; a beer tasting; a swim in Caspian Lake; a tour of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory; even a quick trip to Burlington. The cards were designed by Jessica’s aunt, Mary DeClerico, with the bride’s favorite fl owers—gardenias and peonies. Th e morning of the wedding dawned sunny and bright. At 8:30am, Liam presented Jessica with a box he had made and stenciled with a note giving her explicit instructions to open it every hour until the ceremony. Each note contained another reason Liam told Jessica he was marrying her. “I want to marry you so we can continue to have the best adventures of our lives.” And with each note there was a token of their time together, including the heart-shaped rock they found in Italy.

Photo 1: Photo by Hanna Photography

Photo 2: Photo by Hanna Photography

The members of the wedding party were either relatives or very, very old friends, like Liam’s nursery school pals, Isaac Loeb and David Dodge, who served as groomsmen, along with Jessica’s brother, Alexander Bullock. Loeb, known as Zeke, also introduced Liam to Jessica. Jessica’s sister Katherine was her maid of honor; her bridesmaids were a cousin, Emily DeClerico, and Liam’s sister, Lauren.

The outdoor ceremony began at 3:30, fi ngers crossed. The wind was pretty brisk, so much so that her maid of honor spent the entire ceremony holding the bride’s veil to keep it from taking a spin on its own. But the sun was shining when the bride and groom exchanged matching gold bands with what Jessica describes as “secret engravings.” Cocktails, dinner and dancing followed. And at dusk, the bride and groom led the rest of the wedding party to the field behind the inn to light the lanterns. Th at, said Jessica, “was the fi nal piece of orchestrated wedding.”

However, there was more to come. After her mother, sister and mother-in-law helped her change out of her wedding dress with the 100 buttons down the back, Jessica and Liam were off to an “after party,” a local tradition, which took place at a friend’s house on the lake. According to some, it is also traditional to dunk the groom in the lake, but Jessica swears it never happened.

Instead at around two in the morning, the bride and groom, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend and Zeke Loeb raided the pantry and treated themselves to some of the leftover wedding cake.