Matt Wethington and Heather Garnreiter

When Heather Garnreiter and Matt Wethington met at a dinner party in 2008, they couldn’t stop making each other laugh. Soon after, they discovered they both enjoyed watching the same scary TV shows, like “Ghost Hunters,” “Storm Chasers” and — most frightening of all — “Jersey Shore.”

But they soon developed a deeper connection. Garnreiter found she could talk easily about the open-heart surgeries she’d had as a child and the scars she usually kept hidden.

In 2010, Wethington made yellow “Amazing Race” clue envelopes with coded messages that led Garnreiter from GoKart racing to cupcakes at Sprinkles with Candace Nelson of “Cupcake Wars,” a creepy movie, dinner de luxe and “Phantom of the Opera” at the Pantages. The final clue — “All I want is to love you forever” — led to a diamond ring and a proposal.

Garnreiter, 27, is a marketing manager at PCMall.com in Torrance, and Wethington, 41, is an associate director at Century Group, an executive search firm in El Segundo.

They wed on Oct. 15 at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point. When Garnreiter walked down the aisle, said Wethington, “My jaw just dropped.... She looked like an absolute princess.”

For the 157-guest reception at the Talega Golf Club in San Clemente, Laurie Davies of Five Star Weddings & Events brought the couple’s vision to life with lush floral arrangements and tables that seemed to glow with the light of hundreds of small candles. “It was breathtakingly romantic,” said the bride.

—Maxine Nunes
Custom Publishing Writer