For reasons documented for Wed in prior online missives, the novel has a personal resonance with me and, from its pages, we hoped to coax some of the tale's frivolity, fun, magic and - of course - our very own happy ending. 

 

And maybe because we believed, the magic happened. 

 

To paraphrase Mr J. M. Barrie: the wedding was made of faith, and trust and pixie dust. 

 

 

Both Rob and I wanted one thing from our wedding day: to have fun with the people we love. We didn't want suits or fuss, just smiles and effortlessness. 

 

So away we all flew to Trevenna Barns for a whole weekend. This exclusive use venue on Bodmin Moor enables couples to wed, party and stay on site. It's also a fantastically beautiful yet neutral space - giving us carte blanche to transform it into an ethereal Neverland. 

 

Wave though I did, my magic wand proved most ineffectual: the transformation was going to require some more earthly efforts. Four long banquet style tables, two sizeable indoor spaces (one for Friday, one for Saturday) and spacious grounds somehow needed harmonising before the guests arrived on Friday evening. 

 

 

Happily, I had not only faith, but also the help of some spirited pixies: four industrious bridesmaids armed with to-do lists, a team of creative mums, a groom with a staple gun and the fabulous support of Trevenna's staff. 

 

If you too are rolling your sleeves up to the task of wedding crafting, my advice is thus: practise your table decor beforehand - what looks good in your head might not leave space for the wine cooler in reality; use the creativity of others - be it maids, mums or good old Pinterest; bring spares of everything and delegate, delegate, delegate. 

 

The decorative vision, darlings, was to combine threads of the Peter Pan narrative with the earthy, natural, relaxed woodland of my imagination...

 

 

On the tables, over rough hessian runners, we placed copies of Peter Pan and other hardback books that had significance to us. Sitting atop the books were acorns and thimbles, symbolising Wendy and Peter's kiss. Feathers poked out of antique beer bottles and larch fronds collected in Cardinham Woods lazed between cutlery. 

 

Our wedding favours - sempervivums home-grown by my Dad - nestled in a rustic crate at one end of the marquee. Their fancy Latinate name means 'forever living' - an apt sentiment, we hoped, with which to mark the beginning of our marriage.

 

 

An unlikely curio of two discarded, three dimensional, eight-foot cardboard trees which I requisitioned from a window display of a clothing store (and, much to the chagrin of my bloke-to-be, stored in the garage for six months!) and then covered in pages from Peter Pan, formed both a foresty focal point and a wedding guest message tree. We strung butterflies between the trees and asked guests to replace theirs with a picture taken on our Fujifilm Instax - a Polaroid style camera. We now have a visual reminder of all the guests at the wedding: their fun, captured.

 

Despite the pressure of executing your vision, I highly endorse DIY decorating. It connects you physically to a highly emotional day and settles your mind somehow. Your task is clear, achievable and, whilst I had fairy lights to string and acorns to strew, those pesky tummy butterflies quietened.

 

 

Also, everywhere you look, you see the story of your wedding - a grand narrative in which the day itself is merely the denouement. 

 

From Mum's beautiful ivy and flower garland and yards and yards of her sewing club's bunting, to the hundreds of butterflies cut from pages of Peter Pan that my bridesmaids had perched on every surface of the venue; from the touching slideshow my brother-in-law put together, to the acorns, books, branches and ferns I'd collected over eight months...the chapters of our wedding planning were all around me. 

 

 

They reminded me of the joy of the journey we had all been on, and that those I love most all had a hand in writing our happy ending: together, we had made something magical.

 

Together, we then made mischief at the fun Friday night photo-booth style session set up by our talented photographer, Hayley Savage. The many Peter Pan themed props bought for the occasion (including a huge inflatable crocodile) caught some hilarious candid moments and set the light-hearted and relaxed tone of the weekend.

 

The next morning - the morning of our wedding day - is a kaleidoscope of beautiful moments. I remember the morning mists creeping over the moors; my brother Jay's manly retaliation to a wasp invasion; my brother Jonny's sartorial brilliance - combining faded jeans with our granddad's tailcoat; Susanne Hatwood's floral perfection; Hayley's effortless professionalism; kids and adults under the spell of my Dad's mushroom treasure hunt; smiles, fake moustaches and silliness at every turn. 

 

 

Perhaps aptly for a wedding that we wanted to be close to nature, there were some powerful elemental forces at play and sporadic rain showers meant we couldn't get married outside. But, nothing if not mercurial, in recompense the elements then gave us a wedding present money can't buy: our day was blessed by a magical double rainbow. 

 

Faith and pixie dust were clearly in abundance, but the act of trust on this truly unique of days is a pretty big one: that there will be someone waiting for you at the end of the aisle. But then, if you have to question that, you probably wouldn't be about to head down it. 

 

If, like me, you go for 'higher than normal / looked fine in the box heels', you've also got to trust that you can get down the blooming thing without tripping up.

 

 

Which I did - just very slowly. 

 

And we wed, very beautifully. 

 

I'm sure in the course of our marriage there will be times when faith and trust will be tested, but with such magical beginnings and a sprinkle of pixie dust, I have faith that the tiny acorn of our first married kiss will grow into the strong oak of happy forever after. 

 

For to have faith, is to have wings. 

 

 

Photography Hayley Savage Photography www.hayleysavagephotography.co.uk 

Venue Trevenna www.trevenna.co.uk 

Dress Vintage reclaimed dress from Daughters of Simone www.daughtersofsimone.com 

Dress alteration Annalise Harvey www.annaliseharvey.com 

Headdress Holly Young Headwear www.hollyyoungboutique.com 

Flowers The Blue Carrot www.thebluecarrot.co.uk 

Make-up Suzi Winter www.makeupartistcornwall.co.uk 

Hair Jo Roseveare, Yoshimi Spa www.yoshimispa.com 

 

words Rebecca Ritson

 

Copyright WED magazine 2013