At This Cottagecore-Themed Wedding Under the Redwood Trees, Guests Rode a Mini Train to the Reception

Linda and Clarko are both designers in San Francisco, and when their friend (and future bridesmaid) Jessy set them up on a date in June 2016, they hit it off right away. A little over four years later, the couple planned a trip to visit Clarko’s family in Australia. He surprised Linda at the airport with a stop in Bali along the way. “We spent two weeks on the beaches, hiking the jungles, and eating all the Indonesian food we could,” Linda says. Clarko wrote a poem for Linda and gave one line to her each day. At the end of their trip, in Sydney, Clarko picked up the engagement ring he designed and brought Linda to the Royal Botanic Garden to give Linda the last line of the poem—and the diamond. She said “yes” to the proposal and the couple immediately began planning their wedding.

When Linda and Clarko toured Nestldown in Los Gatos, California, they knew they wanted to get married there. “It’s romantic, storybook, and located in one of our favorite places in the Bay Area,” Linda says. The couple share a love of flowers, so they envisioned a ceremony in the venue’s chapel with tons of greenery and wildflowers followed by a cottagecore-themed party among the redwood trees. Linda and Clarko hired Lisa Li from Blooming Wedding to introduce them to trusted vendors and design their colorful July 8, 2023, wedding day.

“Working with local vendors who shared our vision and supporting LGBTQ+, female-founded, and Asian-American businesses was really important to us,” Linda says. Ahead, tap into the experience the couple’s 140 guests had on the day in these photos from Nirav Patel Photography.

Linda put her talents to work by creating water-colored invitations, illustrated dinner and bar menus, and hand-calligraphed name cards for the wedding. The couple and their bridal party hand-painted candles as wedding favors, too. “Clarko and I both love candles and always have one burning during dinner so the hand-painted candles were made with a lot of love,” Linda says.

Linda chose an off-the-shoulder, puff-sleeve Monique Lhuillier wedding dress in a floral fabric with a long train and a leg slit. “I’d never pictured myself in just a white dress,” she says. “When thinking about a gown that I could imagine myself wearing in a field of wildflowers, I immediately knew it had to be from Monique Lhuillier, whose floral prints I adore.” Linda opted for her signature winged eyeliner (she swears by Fenty Flyliner for a stay-all-day look), and wore her hair in a half-up style with a blue bow.

Linda held a large bouquet of vibrant local flowers. “We were searching for a refined-but-vibrant aesthetic,” she says. “Carefully gathered, but not overly heavy, the bouquet was finished with pastel blue ribbons that complemented the overall mood and color scheme.”

Linda and Clarko didn’t have traditional bridesmaids and groomsmen. “Our entire friend group means the world to us as a set,” Linda says. The wedding party's leading ladies were asked to wear white, while the men chose non-matching dark suits to contrast Clarko’s light gray ensemble. Attendants held eccentric bouquets that were unique from each other in design, shape, materials, and flowers.

Clark wore a gray suit from Tom Ford paired with a white Eton shirt, a baby blue tie to match Linda’s hair ribbon, and Gucci loafers. “In the year before the wedding, I grew out my hair to give myself more options, and worked with a local barber over the course of some months to try different styles before committing,” he says. “I wore a three day stubble, which is how I have my beard most of the time."

The couple’s ceremony took place outside, surrounded by trees and foliage. A half-circle arrangement of organic wildflowers and lush greenery was arranged to form the altar; arrangements of overgrown foliage that were created on-site were attached to chairs along the aisle. “This personalized touch aimed to not only captivate visually, but also to evoke a sense of connection, grounding guests in the moment and infusing the ceremony with a deeply personal energy,” Linda says.

A live classical guitarist performed during the ceremony. The couple’s wedding party walked down the aisle in single-gender pairs to “Merry-Go-Round of Life” from Howl's Moving Castle. Then, Linda made her grand entrance to “Zelda’s Lullaby” from the Legend of Zelda video games.

The couple’s friend, May-Li Khoe, officiated their ceremony. “May-Li Khoe gave a stunning introduction for us that she wrote over the months leading up to the wedding. It went over marriage the way we see it: a bond of respect, understanding, and growth,” Linda says.

Following her warm welcome, Linda and Clarko exchanged personalized vows. “The line that everyone commented on for the rest of the night was Clarko’s,” Linda remembers, ‘I want to spend my tiny slice of infinity with you.” Guests tossed white flower petals as Linda and Clarko celebrated back down the aisle to “Married Life” from Pixar’s Up.

As guests gathered for the cocktail hour, Linda and Clarko stepped away with their photographer to take portraits and photos with their wedding party. Nirav was sure to capture the couple’s guests, too, who showed up in style!

The couple’s planning team brought in rented lounge furniture to construct comfortable lounge spaces, where attendees were encouraged to rest and mingle during the interlude.

Linda took on the project of creating the escort cards herself. She calligraphed each guest’s name and table number on tags attached to hand-painted candles. “They took quite a bit of time,” Clarko says. “At one point, she realized she had messed up all the hand-calligraphed escort cards, but they were super important to her so she redid all 140 of them again.” Candles were displayed on an installation of moss with pops of flowers, strawberries, and mushrooms, as if they were growing naturally from the table.

The couple and their guests hopped on a mini train to ride past the apple orchard to the reception while Mama Cass’ “Make Your Own Kind of Music” played. “We both love trains of all kinds,” Linda says.

Dinner took place by the gardens and koi pond, where long wooden tables were set up in the grass and decorated with table runners of moss, strawberries, and mushrooms, the bride’s hand-made table numbers, and vibrant arrangements of wildflowers.

Place settings featured chargers in unique designs for each guest, along with the bride’s hand-painted menus and place cards. In addition to beer, wine, spirits, and non-alcoholic options, the couple served an Aperol spritz named for their mini schnauzer, Pepper, as their signature cocktail (Linda even painted a watercolor portrait of Pepper for the bar menu).

Instead of traditional wedding cake with vanilla layers and buttercream, Linda and Clarko opted for a strawberry-watermelon confection—a recipe from an Australian restaurant that the duo has recreated for birthdays and anniversaries over the years. Their cutting cake was adorned with macerated strawberries, pistachio slivers, and dried rose petals. A large sheet cake was made just for guests, so everyone could enjoy the strawberry, watermelon, and rosewater flavors.

Linda and Clark shared their first dance to “La Festin” from Pixar’s Ratatouille. “We definitely didn’t practice our first dance enough, so when the time came, we just sort of winged it—which led to a comically bad moment of Clarko swinging me around by the waist as I screamed!” Linda says.

The couple served a family-style dinner featuring Asian cuisine. As a late-night snack, Linda and Clarko offered milk tea boba and popcorn chicken.

At the end of the evening, guests grabbed Chinese lanterns for the couple’s send-off as the song “San Francisco” by Scott McKenzie played in the background. The duo then jetted off to their honeymoon in Singapore and Mallorca. To couples who are planning their own weddings, Linda and Clarko recommend making intentional decisions together. “Pick and choose the traditions you want to honor,” Linda says. “Choose the food and cake and music you actually love.”