Today's wedding is draw droppingly beautiful.

Jade and Tom married on May Day, one of the happiest days of the year in my opinion and the perfect choice for their Cornish wedding. With a passion for history they decided on incorporating antique books and plays into their details and décor. Add to that a fairytale woodland feel and you have a totally charming yet pretty style.

The flowers were a triumph, wild looking blooms of ferns mixed with blue, red and white blooms were the perfect touch of whimsy.

Jade was lucky enough to wear her mum's wedding dress which was exquisite, while the bridesmaids wore sage green frocks and Tom was suited and booted in Hugo Boss. Wow.

Many thanks today to the fabulous Debs Ivelja for sharing her photographs.

THE PROPOSAL | We were staying at my parents' house in the countryside for Christmas, and Tom suggested a dawn walk in the woods. He proposed at the top of a waterfall, then uncorked a bottle of champagne as the sun broke over the horizon.

THE VISION | We went for a 'fairy-tale woodland with antique books' theme, as we met at university whilst studying Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (lots of old books involved) and both grew up in the countryside. I also wanted every little detail to be personal to us, so I hand-made all the stationery and sourced each individual book and pewter teapot for the table displays from antique shops.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We were quite overwhelmed by all the planning required, so got wedding planner Jessie Thomson to help. She was great at keeping us on track and making sure nothing got forgotten, and we just managed to get everything done by the big day.

THE VENUE | I'd always wanted to get married in St Mylor Parish Church, as childhood holidays were spent staying with my grandparents nearby, and it was one of the places we always visited. It's very old and very beautiful - parts of it date back to the 11 ^th century, and it's situated right next to the sea as well as being surrounded by overgrown woods - so always seemed to be the perfect place to get married.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | I always knew I was going to wear my mum's wedding dress. My parents got married in Papua New Guinea, and Mum transported her dress all over the world for me until I needed it. It's made of Brussels lace, and after a few alterations by the ever-so-talented and lovely Lindsay Rodham (lengthening the hem, removing the collar etc) it fitted me perfectly.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Tom wore a Hugo Boss suit, which luckily didn't need altering as he left it until two weeks before the wedding to get it!

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We chose John Keats' poem On the Sea for the secular reading, as it's about the sea's ability to calm and restore after the bustle of city life - it seemed apt both for our life in London and the church's location. The hymns were Church of England primary-school favourites, Morning has Broken, All Things Bright and Beautiful and Lord of the Dance, and all our guests enjoyed belting them out!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I chose my bridesmaids' dresses and accessories long before I planned anything else. As it was a spring wedding I wanted the dresses to be a very particular shade of pale sage-green, which luckily I managed to find in Coast, and I bought matching necklaces for them made from strings of freshwater pearls.

THE FLOWERS | Georgia Westwood did the flowers for us, and she managed to turn my often-contradictory ideas into the perfect May Day bouquets and table displays. Primarily bluebells, sweetpeas, ferns and eucalyptus (in a nod to my Australian heritage), Georgia also added splashes of red and sheaves of wheat which I loved.

THE CAKE | We had an eight-tiered cheese cake, consisting of whole rounds of Cornish cheeses, but Faye from The Natural Cake Company also made us a proper cake as well. She uses only natural ingredients, and her cakes are both delicious and edible works of art.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | I chose Debs Ivelja as her portfolio was not just the usual reportage shots, but focused instead on capturing the drama in intimate moments. Exactly what I think a wedding should be. She and her assistant Sarah took nearly 1000 photos for us, and Debs was wonderful to deal with throughout the whole process.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | For the table displays I bought a selection of pewter and ceramic jugs and teapots from the antique shops in Rye, and also hired vintage glass bottles and cloches to display the flowers in. We added stacks of antique books bought from second-hand bookstores, and also gave small books to each of our guests as wedding favours.

As Tom and I met when we were both studying Renaissance Literature at university, we used EEBO to find the title pages of an appropriate selection of Renaissance plays. We had A Pleasant Comedy, All Fools, An Almond for a Parrot, The Shoemakers Holiday, The Island Princess, The Alchemist, and of course A Midsummer Night's Dream for the top table. We downloaded these, and I printed them on 'parchment' coloured card for the table names. I also used Microsoft Paint to edit them for the table plan, so that each included the names of our guests in lieu of a cast-list. I used a sheet of wrapping paper for the table plan's background that I found in the British Library's gift shop, depicting Early Modern London, which I thought was an appropriate reference to our life together in London.

An old school friend of mine happens to be a successful mixologist, so as a wedding gift he very kindly agreed to invent three cocktails tailored to our wedding, and serve these at a cocktail hour after the wedding breakfast. They were stunning as well as being delicious! The May Day Tea was served in vintage cups and saucers, and was my particular favourite, though the Spring Collins was the overall winner in terms of flavour (including radishes and basil as well as rather a lot of gin).

The cocktail hour certainly put everyone in the right mood for the evening's dancing. We wanted a song that reflected the party atmosphere of the evening, so chose Benny Goodman's Sing Sing Sing for our first dance. Regardless of the fact that it's very difficult to dance to, as it's very fast. Not that this was a problem though, as we engaged Jerome Anderson to teach us how to dance in two weeks. He happens to be Lindsay Rodham's partner, the lady who altered my wedding dress, so we were in very safe hands. He teaches in a wonderfully holistic way, and made the most of our strengths whilst minimising our flaws.

We did the first minute and a half on our own, then my bridesmaids and Australian relatives joined in. Sam and The Swing Empire, our live Jazz band, were fantastic. I had been more worried about the first dance than anything else on our wedding day, and suddenly realised the day before that maybe our guests wouldn't be as enthusiastic about dancing to Jazz as us, but the dance floor filled up for the rest of the evening. It made such a difference having a live band. We would never, ever have had a DJ or just an ipod play list, as there's something incredibly exciting about dancing to live music. It's an obvious way to save money, but we wouldn't have done without it.

THE HONEYMOON | Seeing as we'd managed to drag all our friends and family down to Cornwall for our wedding, we asked them to stay on a bit longer to continue the celebrations. We spent a week climbing the cliffs and exploring isolated beaches together, as well as eating a lot of amazing seafood. Tom and I then flew off to Florence for a week, and finished up in Venice. Italy really is the perfect honeymoon location.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Swing dancing to a live band with all our friends and family, and seeing everyone joining in and genuinely enjoying themselves. I'd planned every detail of the day so carefully, but I'd never really visualised that part of it - seeing it happen around us was amazing.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Get a wedding planner! Even if you do have time to do absolutely everything yourselves, why get mired down in every boring detail when you can just concentrate on the fun bits instead? Jessie let us focus on the things we knew we'd enjoy planning, and covered everything else. Her expertise and guidance made the whole process so much more enjoyable.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Wedding Planner | Jessie Thomson

Flowers | Georgia Westwood

Photographer | Debs Ivelja

Reception Venue | Scorrier House

Caterers | Beetham Food

Band | The Swing Empire

Dress Alterations | Lindsay Rodham

Swing Dancing Instructor | Jerome Anderson

The Cake | Faye Hodgson ( The Natural Cake Company)

Utterly beautiful.

Jade and Tom, thanks so much to you both for sharing your nuptials with us here at WWW XO Lou