New Vancleave wedding venue holds ribbon cutting

VANCLEAVE, Miss. (WLOX) — Eight months ago, Lakeside Manor existed only as an idea.

Courtney and Jesse Richard sketched the idea out on scratch paper at their kitchen counter. Today, the dream sits on 22 acres in Vancleave.

“We buckled down and said, let’s make this happen. So one night we got some literal scratch sheets of paper and sat at our kitchen bar and drew this place up on a plain white sheet of paper,” Courtney said.

Courtney, a former ICU nurse and mother of three, wanted to build something of her own and spend more time with her family. Jesse, a Biloxi firefighter and fifth-generation plumber, wanted to turn his wife’s dream into a reality.

“Believe it or not, most firemen work two jobs. And so I always worked for my dad. I’m a fifth generation plumber. So I worked for him and I was working six days a week and just wanted to spend more time with the family,” Jesse said.

The couple invested $2 million, but they say the biggest hurdle came before a single shovel hit the ground.

“Just dealing with banks and dealing with zoning, and all the hoops we had to jump through just to get the project off the ground,” Jesse said.

Once construction began, family and friends showed up to help build it.

But getting to the day of the ribbon cutting required participation from the entire family.

“When they completed the building, I came in and framed all the interior walls and helped them along the way with subs in and out. Kind of regulated when they couldn’t be here. Jesse runs his own business, Prestige Plumbing, so I was here when he couldn’t be and when my daughter couldn’t be. And from about February till last week, I was here at every moment,” Courtney’s father, Robert Romero, said.

“Between helping doing the plumbing work and going to bathrooms and babysitting kids, a lot of times when they did that, they were really busy. That was my part of it,” Jesse’s father, James Richard, said.

Just days before the ribbon cutting, Lakeside Manor hosted its very first wedding.

“It was just so amazing to see a dream that started on a sheet of paper come to life and watch the first bride and groom say their vows literally right where we’re standing,” Courtney said.

The venue is open, but Jesse said none of it would have happened without Courtney.

“Without her, it wasn’t possible, you know. She’d pick me up on the hardest days,” he said.

The couple is now booking weddings and hopes Lakeside Manor becomes a place families return to for life’s biggest moments.

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