The Clay Theatre: Scene 1
IT’S TIME! I’m so excited to finally share our wedding with you all! When I started writing this post, I quickly realized that there was no way to fit everything into a single post so we’re doubling the fun with a second post, a little something I like to call “Scene 2”, coming later this week. Tonight, I want to focus on our venue, The Clay Theatre, the journey to finding it and every little detail that makes it such an unbelievably special place for any important event in your life—and, most importantly, why it will always have a special place in our hearts.
First, lets backtrack a little. When Cole and I got engaged last Thanksgiving, I was completely clueless about where to begin our wedding planning process. I was so worried about setting the wrong date or choosing the wrong venue that I stalled and didn’t do anything, wasting A LOT of time in the process. Don’t get me wrong, I searched for wedding venues online every single day for months and found so many that I liked (and almost settled on a couple of times) but nowhere that I loved 100%. I got really discouraged for a while because I had this vision in my head of our “dream wedding” venue and I started to come to the conclusion that it just didn’t exist (btw, MAJOR kudos to Cole for not calling it off during this time…I was as dramatic as you might expect!).
Roughly six months later, I saw something new while scrolling through wedding venues online—The Clay Theatre. Originally opened in 1937, The Clay Theatre was once a thriving movie theatre attracting both locals and tourists from around the country. As all good things come to an end, the theatre was vacant for nearly a decade until the most perfectly dynamic duo, Andrea and Daniel Vallencourt, took on the challenge of renovating this former theatre into an event space, breathing new life into it with such extraordinary vision and incredible attention to detail (view a more detailed history of The Clay Theatre here). We scheduled a tour, drove 2 and a half hours to Green Cove Springs, FL and fell in love with the most perfect space I’ve ever seen—while it was still under construction! That’s right, we booked our venue when it wasn’t even finished yet…that’s how sure we were that this was the perfect place for our wedding and that’s how much we believed in the incredibly gifted team behind it. I’m a very anxious, extremely visual, non risk-taker (I’m such a delight), so the fact that booking our wedding venue while it was still under construction didn’t send me spiraling into a panic attack solidified the fact that we were making the right decision.
Once The Clay Theatre officially re-opened for business as an event space, I was FLOORED by how incredible it turned out. I already knew it was going to be amazing but there’s something about experiencing a space like this for yourself that takes it to the next level. When we were searching for venues, I wanted something unique and different…something that truly felt like “us” and this Art Deco, vintage but modern, extra but classic, perfection of a space was more than I could have ever dreamed of. Every single detail, no matter how small, was carefully planned, right down to the Le Labo hand soap in the restrooms! You’ll never run out of Instagram photo ops at The Clay Theatre and that’s a promise!
Andrea and Daniel Vallencourt, owners of The Clay Theatre, and Lauren Cowgill, The Clay Theater’s in-house wedding planner (she works miracles, trust me), are some of the kindest, most down-to-earth people I have ever met. It’s one thing to find your dream wedding venue but it’s another to also find a dream team of people that just happen to come along with it. It’s really rare to find people that truly care about your big day and want nothing but to make sure that everything is perfect for YOU. So if you’re booking The Clay Theatre for your event, you should also know that you’re getting the opportunity to work with some of the most genuine people you’ll ever know.
It’s clear now why I had to break this into separate posts, right? HA! Scroll through for some of my favorite shots of our venue and feel free to ask me any questions you may have via the contact form or by emailing me directly!
No, this isn’t a stock image. It actually looks like this!
The most incredible chandeliers hanging in the indoor reception/ceremony space at The Clay Theatre.
One of my favorite shots! Such a cool perspective of the chandeliers.
We set up our seating assignments on this gorgeous table in the lobby. Our wedding planner, Lauren, found a source to get these custom acrylic card holders made and they couldn’t have been more perfect!
I didn’t want to be kitsch with an entire movie theatre themed wedding but I definitely wanted to pay homage to The Clay Theatre’s movie cinema past with these seating assignment cards inspired by old-school movie tickets. Huge shout-out to Laura from Letter Box Ink for working with me on these!
I knew I wanted a champagne wall and my perfect daddy, also known as MacGyver built this one for me in one day!
Ah, my “greenery bridge” — definitely one of my favorite moments. Josie with Anything With Plants went above and beyond for us with the florals. This was one area in particular that I really struggled with because I had no idea what I wanted…until Josie showed me what I wanted!
I die over and over every time I see these little glass orbs—so whimsical and fun!
I ordered these gold mirrored place cards for each of our guests from Etsy and they turned out so beautifully! I was surprised about how reasonably priced they were too!
All photos by Gandy Photographers
…and this is where Scene 2 picks up in just a couple days! LOOK AT THAT FLOWER WALL YA’LL! I can’t wait to share all of the fun details from our reception space!