Seasonal wedding flowers

The church was beautiful, we found a florist who was a friend of my parents, and who was sympathetic to our green ideas.

She sourced flowers and greenery as seasonally as possible, including some raided from my parents’ garden the previous day (!), and also made up some planters of growing flowers and herbs that we took away to keep afterwards.  The results were stunning.

A very personal wedding ceremony

Our church wedding was fantastic too.  As we are both Christians, the spiritual aspect of marriage was really important to us, so getting married in church was particularly special.

The service was wonderful – our friend and university chaplain led the service so he was able to tailor it to us quite a lot (his address to the congregation after the marriage involved Bagpuss!) – and as there is quite a lot of choice about what wording to use for the marriage service, and which readings (Bible or not) and music to use, the whole thing felt very personal.

We entered the church to the Beatles’ ‘Here comes the sun’ in the end, very happy! We involved friends and family in leading the readings, prayers and music too, which was lovely.  We exchanged wedding rings from Cred (who really impressed us), and our little ‘engagement ring’ trees made it along to the church too as decorations.  And we made our own service sheets (using Evolve recycled printer paper), including our story in them.

Snap happy guests

After the ceremony we did a big photo session in the pretty churchyard, with my keen amateur photographer uncle doing the ‘posed’ photos, and the rest of our photos taken by the guests who then posted their digital photos on to us.

It worked out really well, despite what you hear about how you must get in a professional.  With so many people doing your photos you are bound to have a fantastic selection of shots, and they covered different groups of guests, as well as getting some fantastic informal pics to add to the posed ones.

Homemade confetti

We had made our own confetti the previous summer, by drying rose petals in the oven and storing them in warm, dark and dry boxes. We decorated the boxes we stored it in with some shiny red paper from Oxfam (again – they did well out of us!) to make pretty serving boxes to pass round for guests to pick out handfuls from.  And it was so beautiful, the colours were preserved really well.

The cherry tree in the churchyard decided to add to our confetti and showered us with blossom as soon as we stepped out of the church, which was VERY cute.  It made a wonderful backdrop to the photos too.

Love,

Helen and Mike

It was an amazing and beautiful day. The wedding party began to arrive the day before, and we put the finishing touches to the decorations and food that could be done in advance. In the evening, we had a small family/wedding party celebration, and then Mike and our best man went to stay the night with friends.

The wedding day began with grey skies and a forecast of rain… but as we started preparing, the clouds began to clear, and the day turned hot and sunny!

Mike, his family and the ushers set about decorating the village hall for the reception with pot plants, a photo montage of silly pictures of us as kids, our lovely red and blue fairtrade balloons and the bunting we borrowed.

Here come the girls

Meanwhile, my bridesmaids and I spent the morning making sure the right decorations went to the right venue, and getting pretty!

They had all bought/ brought their own dresses after I’d given them a colour sample, to make sure they all got a dress they liked and that suited them, so it was quite exciting to see all the dresses together.

They looked fantastic together, each in a slightly different shade of cherry red, it was lovely. To coordinate their outfits we had bought them each a ‘vegetable ivory’ pendant from DeMEC, who sell beautiful fairtrade jewellery, and I made them some little hair fascinators to wear.

I’d had to buy some new makeup from BBoheme since I don’t have very much, but other than that we just used what we already had, plus a bit of swapping and sharing.

And soon it was time to head over to the village hall, once the men were safely out of the way over at the church (we didn’t want to spoil the surprise of seeing one another in wedding clothes before the ceremony).

Green groom in vintage brown

Mike found his suit on Ebay, an awesome brown vintage 1970s suit, complete with flares, which suits him perfectly. Coupled with a really smart shirt and cherry red tie, both found in charity shops, he looked amazing. The ushers had brought their own suits, but we gave them coordinating ties and buttonholes.

Oxfam Bridal to the rescue

I found my dress in Oxfam Bridal in Leicester, the first bridal shop I went in (though I went in another afterwards, just to make sure!). It was beautiful, a vintage style dress with a simple lacy overlay on it, for which I borrowed an underskirt from a recently married friend.

I know I’ve gone on and on about Oxfam Bridal, but I was so impressed I’m going to recommend it again! And I managed to find some shoes in the exact same style as the dress somehow on Oxfam’s online shop. Pretty fortunate!

I wore the dress with an antique lace veil that has been in Mike’s family for generations, which was really special. I also managed to find this pretty necklace in a charity shop too. So we had fun putting the outfits together!

I’ll post again soon on the rest of the day,

Love, Helen

So it’s time to start pulling everything together.

The food

Our last visit home turned out to be reasonably relaxed – the stress of DIY vegan catering seemed to have calmed down significantly now that most of the food is done and frozen, ready for the event.

The clothes

All that was left for us to do was to try on our wedding outfits again, and check through all the orders that have arrived since we were last home.

I finally got to try on my awesome Oxfam wedding dress together with the underskirt I’ve borrowed, and the beautiful antique veil from Mike’s family – amazingly it all works together, so that’s one thing less to think about.

The cake

Our wedding cake has been made by Mike’s exceptionally talented mum, along with some very cute sugar daisy decorations – although there was a bit of a panic when we realised that it was a non-standard size, and therefore wouldn’t fit a standard cakeboard or stand. This resulted in his dad spending an afternoon in the shed improvising one – problem sorted!

The rings

The next ‘job’ was to try on our rings. They were beautiful and very tiny! However, Mike’s hands have changed size somehow, so his ring has gone back for resizing, just to provide a bit of last minute excitement! We’ll have to report back on how that goes, but so far Cred have been very helpful.

The decorations

Other than a large order of beer and Divine chocolate, the remainder of the things to be sorted all involved venue decorations.

We went to see our florist and ordered possibly a silly amount of wedding flowers (as seasonal or replantable as we can, apart from the daisies, which are a necessary compromise for me!).

Our multitude of fair trade red and blue balloons arrived without a problem from eco my party, and will brighten our village hall reception up a lot.

And then there’s our bunting – bizarrely borrowed from a campaign network that we belong to.  We saw it at one of their training events, and cheekily asked to borrow it! Being the wonderfully artistic hippyish kind of people they are, they said yes, and now we have a very unconventional looking string of bunting (strips of random fabrics stapled onto green twine). Which suits us brilliantly.

Add to that some borrowed and freecycled fairylights, and I’m sure it will all be beautiful!

Peace!

Helen and Mike

Read Helen and Mike’s full profile

Despite the attention-grabbing, almost ominous presence of “W-day” on the horizon we’re still able to find so much joy in the silly little things of now each day.  Building snowcastles on a hilltop in Nottinghamshire, revelling in the loud riffs and innuendos of some classic ACDC, enjoying the amazing sound that a pile of melting snow on the pavement makes when you stamp in it, baking a big gooey coffee-chocolate cake for no particular reason, annihilating our taste-buds at an awesome curry house for our 3 year anniversary…

Now we’ve started to notice a change in the air; the snow melts, the ice thaws, the sky gets noticeably brighter at hometime every day.  The crocuses came in to flower here this week and the daffodils are growing fast!

We’ve been through some crazy and stressful times the last few months and in some ways “it’s been a long cold lonely winter” for us.  But “here comes the sun”, and now is the time to put out new shoots, to cast away the huddled-up worries of winter and break new ground, to end this long season of self-analysing and outreachingly be, and enjoy living!

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Love,

Mike and Helen

Read Mike and Helen’s full profile

• In Bruges release

Over the last week we’ve been home to visit our church, hear our banns being read out and finalise the details of the ceremony with them, have attended our final marriage preparation session, and bought our wedding rings.

We found it exciting to sit in church and hear our marriage being announced and prayed for (and it’s even better when no-one objects!!).

Going through the details of the ceremony with the church, and looking at the marriage vows in our marriage preparation session has brought it home that we’re actually going to be doing it for real. It was a thrill to see our names inserted into the text of the vows for the first time!

We’ve heard the wedding vows a hundred times before, but it’s a whole different thing to think about making those vows ourselves and what it will mean practically to keep them.

If you get the chance to go to some marriage preparation classes I’d strongly recommend them. Marriage is probably going to mean a bigger change for us than for many couples who have already been living together for some time, but I think they would still be worth doing even then as they give you a great opportunity to sit back and think about your relationship, your plans for the future, and to find out ways of communicating better with one another.

It’s a useful chance to actually talk about the commitments you are making, and think about what marriage means to you both. It’s been a good way of re-focussing us and helping us see each other’s needs, which has been very positive for our relationship!

And we have rings! We went on a trip to Cred in Chichester for Valentine’s Day to order our rings, and they were very friendly and helpful. I’ve actually had my ring on already as one of the ones in the shop fitted – despite my dislike of rings I’m now really looking forward to being able to wear it properly!

Probably the most impressive thing about their shop is that they had a screen up showing a slide show of how they source their gold and diamonds ethically, and a pile of petition cards on the counter alongside their promotional leaflets. Pretty cool!

Very exciting I’m sure it will sink in even further when we actually have our rehearsal, but there’s still plenty to do before we get there!

Take care, love, Helen and Mike

(woooooooo, we’re getting married!!!!!!!!!!!! )

There are just three months to go before our wedding, and it’s all getting a bit crazy! We’ve reached the panicking-emails-from-parents stage, whilst having to deal with house moves and job hunting, which is an interesting combination.

From our end it seems like things are coming together rather well; we have all the important things booked and now all we need to do (!) is send out invites and sort out the food.

But, as our families keep reminding us, there is still a lot to do!

So, we’re going to make sure we take plenty of time out over the next few weeks to relax and spend time with one another, because it’s so easy to get too caught up in planning the wedding and worrying about the next item on the to-do list.

Our latest task has been contacting people with ‘save the date’ emails or texts to ask for their addresses so we can send out our invites. This has had the advantage of getting us back in contact with a whole range of friends we haven’t seen in ages, who are now inviting us round for food, or to see their gigs, which is brilliant wedding stress therapy!

Taking time out

On Monday we took some time out from work to make snowmen, and we’re also planning on going on a few dates to celebrate ‘us’, which will be nice as we’ve not done that enough recently.

And we’ve also been finding time for some important silliness (making a board game, animating plasticine monsters, watching Danger Mouse cartoons… we have fun!). Hopefully that will give us enough energy to get round to making all the invitations and doing all those other little wedding jobs that keep coming up!

Have fun!

Love, Mike and Helen

• The Lady Vanishes trailer

2 for 1 tickets to the Eco Chic Wedding & Home Show

• A Perfect Murder movie

If you’re planning your own green wedding and want to meet ethical wedding suppliers, why not head along to our Eco Chic Wedding and Home Show

on Sunday 8 March at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Edgbaston.

To get your 2 for 1 tickets

• Contact trailer

buy Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers , just quote code ECWHS-EW09 when booking online or by phone. For more details and to buy tickets, visit: www.ecochicweddingandhomeshow.com Meet the Browns rip

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