How Does Your Garden Glow?: A Clazy Wedding

It was a little intimidating when people came up to me before I was even engaged and told me that they wanted to be invited to my wedding just to see all the details that would go into a "Clazy" (phonetically spelled Clayton + Lindsay) wedding. Clayton was a second grade teacher (now vice principal) at LLA and would decorate his entire classroom each month to fit the science/social studies theme. See his Classroom Design blog here.

He loves big themes and large productions. He says his dream job would be to design Target displays. He's into bold colors, and big ideas. I, on the other hand, am a foodie and love planning events because of, well, the food! It's only fitting, seeing that I'm a Registered Dietitian. I also get a kick out of designing small details that pull everything together. I favor muted, earthy/organic tones, and crafty, unique ideas. Bringing our styles together was a test of love but in the end it all came together beautifully.

The gorgeous wedding venue was located at Edward's Mansion in Redlands, Ca.

Our theme was "How Does Your Garden Glow?" We wanted to incorporate the idea of "glowing old together," rather than just "growing old together." The idea of "glowing" also highlighted our desire to share with the world how blessed we were to have found each other (here's the inside scoop on how we met) and how much we’d like our marriage to be a blessing to others. We presented guests with a book called, "Living Blessed" by Ruthie Jacobsen, as her book was a huge inspiration in our wedding planning process.

Some of our unique DIY projects included: creating every single stationary item from the roots up (multiple layered invitations including hand drawn map, reception programs, date night cards, thank you cards, and the grand 28-page wedding program magazine!)

Our boutonnieres were crafted to include light bulbs.

Covered match boxes served as a table seating/place card for each guest.

Clayton used his "professional teacher handwriting" to design all of the chalkboards.

My mom sewed hundreds of pennants for banners.

Clay and I painted our own owl wedding cake topper (inside scoop on this one - Clay orchestrated a Color Me Mine date into his marriage proposal almost a year prior to our wedding. The ceramics were definitely done in time!)

Our friend, Nicole Swope, created a personalized Disney themed stained glass painting on canvas for guests to color with paint pens.

We incorporated many personal touches into our wedding as well. For example, Clayton knows I'm a popcorn snob so he made it a point to give me a box of Gourzazz Popcorn (my favorite gourmet popcorn) at every important step along our relationship (first date, when we started dating, first dating anniversary, and marriage proposal) so it was only fitting to have Gourzazz as the wedding favor for all our guests to try.

We also love A La Minute, a popular ice cream shop in Redlands, CA that makes ice cream with liquid nitrogen; we had our first date sitting just outside the shop on a park bench. They also happen to cater to the local area so we were lucky to have a smoking cold dessert for all our guests.

Clay is half Chinese and half Indian; I'm from Texas. Another unique aspect of our wedding was to weave both of our cultures into our big event. To accomplish this, we had a Chinese Tea Ceremony and choreographed a multi-cultural dance with the help of one of our bridesmaids.