An Alternative, #plasticfreejuly Wedding

Every summer, the Plastic Free July campaign rolls back around and reminds me of our wedding day. Eight years ago this month, my husband Mark and I got married. In 2013, we had a somewhat unusual goal for our wedding day: to generate no landfill waste. It turns out, it was far easier than we thought. So if you’re getting married and worried about climate change, from our experience, you can have a beautiful wedding which doesn’t cost the earth.

Married in a small, intimate ceremony in the gallery at Compton Verney - where my husband and I visited whilst studying A Level Art together, and many times since. Photo © Paul Briscoe briscoephotography.co.uk

Manage Expectations

From the moment we announced our engagement, we set people’s expectations. With a large family (and not two pence to rub together as a young couple) we knew if we didn’t ‘nip expectation in the bud’ we would end up with many disgruntled and disappointed family members on our hands whose imaginations would run riot of what the day might hold (I am from Essex after all). But as people who enjoy the simple things in life, an elaborate wedding was never going to be right for us, or our intentions. When we announced our engagement, we were clear to one and all that our ceremony would be an intimate affair for immediate family (only), followed by a celebration for everyone starting in the late afternoon. It was our way of balancing what we wanted and what we could achieve with a modest budget. It still remains my favourite piece of wedding-planning advice.

A Sample Sale Dress

Newly engaged, my husband and I had gone to a nearby town to visit an antiques fair when we happened upon a tiny wedding dress shop with an A-board on the street saying ‘sample wedding dress sale - today only!’. Intrigued, we went in - yes, together - and chatted to the owner. She explained samples were often sent out to stores to get a feel for their clientele, and whether or not they wanted to hold a designer’s stock. After a set time frame, the samples are returned, typically to be destroyed. Well, you can imagine my horror!

Photo © Paul Briscoe briscoephotography.co.uk A ‘sample’ dress, about to be destroyed, but instead transformed by a seamstress who added sleeves and removed the train for me, making something completely unique. How lucky I was.

If you are not yet far enough along your green living journey to buy a secondhand dress, I understand. It took a trip to our local vintage wedding dress shop and an hour wearing my Mum’s wedding dress, just to check that I wasn’t quite there either. Also, if you’re not a standard dress size, or have a taste that isn’t in fashion, it makes buying preloved difficult. For example, in the 2000s/10s strapless dresses with big skirts were all the rage, but with my small frame, I would have looked like one of those loo roll ladies and that is definitely not very ‘me’ (I did try a couple on just to check - Mark found that hilarious!). Things in the preloved market have come a long way since I got married in 2013. Rentals have boomed (Girlmeetsdress.com), preloved (stillwhite.com) and vintage has flourished and charity shops have taken their bridal wear (Oxfam) online.

Buy Trees, not Balloons

The simplest, cheapest solution to decorate our venue would have been to fill the space with plastic streamers and balloons. Most balloons are made from mylar - a polyester film - which requires crude oil to produce - or latex, a natural rubber, often marketed as biodegradable, but which can take up to six years to break down and so still poses a risk to wildlife during this time. Instead, we borrowed potted trees from friends and neighbours, and bought four large silver birches to mark out the dance floor with. Those trees now grow in ours and our parents’ gardens, ours now belonging to our children - their wishing trees - dedicated to them at their humanist naming ceremonies. They bring us joy every day.

Embrace your inner Kirstie Allsopp

Inside our children’s Wendy house is the chalkboard we made from an old, gilt picture frame, bought from a charity shop, which once held our vows. Today, it’s covered in their doodles. The white bunting I made to string across the village hall rafters now hangs in my daughter’s bedroom. The thrifted, embroidered tablecloths have been lent out to more friends than I can count and the old typewriter, a centrepiece for one of our tables, belongs to a local care home for residents to explore. Craft what you can, because the stories will live with you forever.

Be cheeky

In the run up to the big day, Mark was walking our dog through woodland when he heard the roar of a chainsaw. On finding the tree surgeon, cheekily he explained our wedding goal and asked if he could have some slices of the felled trunk to use as ‘decorations’. Not only did the chap oblige, but he also lent Mark his wheelbarrow to heft them all the way back to our car, three miles away. (They also made great additions to the log store that winter.)

Grow your own (or ask others to for you)

People love to help with a wedding, we found, with help coming in many guises. My Mum grew flowers not just for all the tables, but also to make beautiful dried petal confetti, as she knew our fears over the plastic sprinkles that were so popular back then. To this day, the moment when all our friends and family showered us in beautiful, natural confetti, will bring happy tears to my eyes. And lastly, and perhaps most unconventionally, we asked guests to bake a cake they loved, in lieu of gifts. It gave everyone an ice breaker, a chance to chat and swap recipes, and of course enjoy multiple slices of cake too.

© Paul Briscoe briscoephotography.co.uk A hand made horseshoe from wood and heriloom buttons, some even from my play group and primary school caridgans.

Support small and keep it local

We had a friend looking to set up a hog roast catering company with pigs reared on his parent’s farm. We paid him upfront a year in advance to help him buy the kit he needed to get off the ground. Some may call this risky. We saw it as an investment in our friend, who could supply us locally sourced, high welfare food for our guests on our wedding day, which was priceless. We used a tiny independent florist in a small, nearby village for my bouquet and the buttonholes, keeping our money invested locally. Our wedding breakfast was held in the same restaurant Mark’s parents dined in when celebrating, twenty+ years ago, the good news they were expecting him. Check the local papers, the independent magazines, the hashtags or locations posts on Facebook or Instagram to help find the small businesses that can make your day unique whilst also keeping the mileage down.

Don’t ‘have it all’

You may not want to hear this if you’re newly engaged and dreaming of the ‘big wedding’, but it’s fair to say the wedding industry now sets unrealistic expectations for most couples. There is so much on offer that you could have, but is it really necessary? If you’re striving to live a greener life, no doubt you’re already doing some values work around the environmental impact of excess, and what living within your means provides. I firmly believe your future together is where the investment should lie - I know it’s a cliche to say your wedding day is only one day, but it really is. We had a wonderful wedding day, one we created together through inventiveness, creativity and a shared goal. It didn’t lead us into debt and our friends and family (on the whole) respected our reasoning behind our choices. It set us up to achieve so much more than we would have been able to if we were tied to credit cards. And of course, eight years later, we’re very much still happily married.

© Paul Briscoe briscoephotography.co.uk All vases were borrowed or thrifted. I made the jute runner using crocheted ribbon I inherited from my Grandmother. The place settings were made using a branch from our apple tree, cut into small chunks with a slit in the top to slide the card place names I designed in Illustrator. All flowers, bar my bouquet, from my parent’s garden. Eclectic and magical.

Are you looking at ways to have a ‘green’ wedding? What are the main hurdles you’ve faced? And have you found any fantastic suppliers or ideas that have been a real boon? Do leave a comment below, especially with any tips for others walking this path too.