“Imagine clutching a beautiful bouquet of flowers that were grown especially for your big day.

Mistaken Identity video download Bangkok Dangerous That’s what I’m looking forward to in June 2009 when I get married in Suffolk.  My flowers are all coming from my Granddad’s greenhouse, a local flower grower or the fields near to my parent’s house.

I’m hugely concerned about the carbon emissions, water usage and pollution caused by flower growing and transporting. For me, knowing where my wedding flowers have come from and how they’ve been grown is really important.  And besides my day job is to promote eco-travel in the UK and Ireland, so making sure my wedding stays clean and green is a no-brainer!

The best thing about ecologically sourced flowers is that I don’t feel limited in any way for choice.  It’s a real opportunity to think creatively about our flowers and arrangements.  So I’m looking at lisianthus, delphiniums and chrysanthemums for the bouquets which can all be grown in Suffolk for a June bloom.

For winter weddings, why not try a touch of holly or explore some barks, stems and evergreens. We’re planning to create fabulous green arrangements using ivy that grows in abundance in the local lanes. The ivy wreaths will look great in our barn venue and will cost very little.

In any case, buying flowers in season will save you money. You just need to get permission from the local farmer or council to pick wildflowers or shrubs. We’ll also be ‘growing’ our wedding favours using seeds, tiny pots and Granddad’s green house.

For additional decoration, Mum and I are going to learn the craft of willow weaving to create standing sculptures for the barn entrance. 

I’m convinced that the combination of a personal touch and seasonal flowers from Suffolk is going to inspire my family and friends. It really puts your guests in touch with the local landscape particularly if they are not from the area.  Giving them something to take home and continue to grow is also a beautiful reminder of the day.”

A bit broke and stuck for ideas, E-bay was really a last resort. Despite being a fervent charity shop rummager, I’d never before bought clothes on E-bay. However, when the dress arrived in the post, I was overjoyed. It fitted perfectly, was in great condition and, best of all, the chances of someone else wearing the same dress at the wedding are minimal (I’m careful now since a friend told me the horror story of when she turned up to a wedding in the same Coast outfit as another wedding-goer).

My dress – made by a well-known 70s high street store – still looks as good as it did back then and I was the happy recipient of lots of compliments on the day of the wedding.

Give a wedding dress a second chance

After my friend’s wedding, I casually started browsing E-bay to look at wedding dresses for my big day in 2009. Again, keen to save money if I can, I also loved the idea of giving someone’s dress another go – a new chance to shine, rather than creating a new once only to be hidden away in a cupboard somewhere.

Naturally there are 1,000s of bridal dresses on E-bay, many of which are shipped from Hong Kong and China. There were still plenty to choose from in the UK from brides who wanted to pass on their dress to a new owner. I did start to ponder why they came to the decision to sell, and some even told me it could be bad luck to buy off someone whose marriage ended in tears.

Staying open minded, I spotted a dress that I liked and got excited by its very low bidding (£50). I joined the bidding war only to lose at the last minute. The dress went for £150. Still a bargain in comparison to the usual hundreds or even thousands of pounds brides fork out for their dress.

Finding ‘the one’

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A bit disheartened by the defeat, I continued browsing the dresses until I spotted another one. I almost fell off my chair when I read that the bride originally paid £3000 for the Italian-designed dress she bought for her wedding. It was made with pure silk and gorgeous lace and no one had taken up the starting bid of £200. Looking at the dress in finer detail only made me love it even more. And finally I took the plunge and placed my bid by which point the auction was coming to an end. The confirmation email told me that I was the new proud owner of a wedding dress!

All manner of emotions kicked in, none of which I could share with my husband to be. Instead I called my mum in a bit of a panic – what if it’s a hoax?! What if it doesn’t fit?! Luckily I calmed down and decided to send the seller an email trying hard to hide my concerns. Her reply was reassuring as she wished me well with her dress which had helped make her day memorable. She was pleased it was going to an excited new owner.

The big day! (the dress arrives…)

After a week or so the dress arrived in the post. Apparently Royal Mail refused to send it in its large original box, so the seller had to repackage, so it eventually arrived in a bin liner! Not quite the entrance it deserved, but exciting nonetheless.

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I pulled the dress out and tentatively tried it on when H2B was out at work. It fitted like a glove! The relief was immense. And it’s a truly beautiful dress. It needs a bit of an iron after its encounter with the postal service, and needs to be taken up a little, but other than that, I can’t wait to wear it next year!

TOP TIPS for buying a bridal dress on E-Bay

• look for dresses shipped from the UK (not Asia which aren’t always second hand)
• always ask the seller questions to be sure you’re getting what’s described
• ask for detailed measurements – and don’t forget to measure yourself first!
• remember that many brides have a reserve price, so it may take a few goes at bidding before you hit this
• ask if there are any marks from where it’s dragged on the ground
• remember that if it doesn’t fit, you can always resell

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I guess this was my first insight into the swamp of information out there about weddings – what to buy, what to wear, where to go. Before long, we were feeling completely overwhelmed by websites, all flashing their wares for diamonds and gold, with price tags that seemed to range vastly.

Then I came across Ethical Weddings and conflict-free rings! I knew vaguely about jewellery playing a part in unstable countries, and we didn’t want to contribute further by supporting such regimes. So buying a conflict-free ring was indeed important for us, as well as knowing that a fair price had been paid to the supplier.

We got some advice from a forum and contacted Cred Jewellery about a ring. In fact, we were pretty impressed by their website and decided to go and visit their shop in Chichester. We hopped on a train one Saturday morning and found the shop not too far from the station.

The rings were just beautiful and I found one which was just what I wanted – modern and simple. The shop itself is quite modest, and not at all full-on with its sales pitch. In fact, the decor could have benefited from being a bit more stylish, to match the quality of its products.

Nonetheless, the staff were friendly and able to help us choose our ring and told us exactly where the diamonds and gold came from. We put in our order and deposit and they set about creating the ring. The production took a bit longer than we expected, and Cred were apologetic but eventually it arrived. The ring came with its own personalised information, with details of the mine in Canada, and fair trade gold from Columbia. It fitted perfectly and suddenly the engagement felt very real!

I showed the ring to my family and they were all really wowed by it and interested to learn more about ethical jewellery and conflict-free diamonds. They had little idea that such a thing existed, but on more thought began to see the importance of finding out as much as possible about where the things we buy come from.

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Laura
Talk about finding ethical engagement and wedding rings in the Ethical Weddings Forum

For those of you who are thinking ‘but you’re the bride’; on a Leap Year girls can propose to boys. And since I didn’t want to wait another four years, I thought, ‘well why not’ and luckily he said yes!

For legend has it that if he says no then he must pay a fine or buy me a dress. Both aren’t completely unattractive options for a cash-strapped lass who likes a new dress, but at the same time I was relieved when he said yes.

In fact I think I was as surprised as he was when I actually asked him, as I hadn’t planned it at all. So very much a spontaneous decision. My immediate thoughts after are captured on my other blog.

So after we decided that we pretty much wanted to be together and do this, we had no idea what came next. Shamefully, we had to google a few phrases just to figure out where to start with stuff like ‘asking my dad’s permission’ and looking for rings.

What I did know was that I wanted our wedding to be as green and ethically sound as possible. For in my work and business, I harp on about green things all the time, so it would seem wrong not to continue these sentiments into what is generally believed to be the most happiest day of one’s life. Which led me to Ethical Weddings of course.

More about the ring later, one of the things that’s keeping me busy is finding a venue for our wedding and reception. We decided to hold our wedding in Suffolk since this is where the majority of my family live and being of Catholic stock I have many more people in my family than my fiance. Plus we want to keep those carbon emissions as low as possible, so no flights to Barbados to tie the knot!

So after trawling through page after page on the internet we found a few possible venues in Suffolk to look at. We want to have a simple, Suffolk-themed wedding, so it seemed only natural to use a barn.

The first barn we looked at was Preston Priory Barn near to Sudbury. Coming in at between £2000 and £3000, it wasn’t the cheapest option for an old farm building (which incidently was nicely renovated – but still basic).

So we decided to compare the barn to a manor house at Bawdsey. It was huge and had loads of maze-like corridors with rooms where guests could stay and enjoy some marvellous views out to sea. Bawdsey Manor was about £2500 to hire or there were also weekend packages which were a tempting option to turn the wedding into a 3 day party. This seemed better value than the barn although the downside was that it was a long journey to get there and would involve lots of cars travelling in the same direction.

Just as we were about to despair, over our Easter dinner, Grandad casually drops into conversation, ‘have you tried the Tithe Barn at Sproughton?’ My ears suddenly prick up and I wonder where and what this barn could be like. Just a few words on a webpage told us that the barn caters for weddings, and bingo! I think we’ve found a possibility!

It’s close to Ipswich so easy to get to and also near to a beautiful old mill on the River Gipping. Owned and run by the Parish Council (who are launching their own green campaign), it’s a bargain to hire at just £500 for the weekend.

We just have to pop by and check it out in more detail, but I think Grandad has come up with a gem – thanks Grandad! Just goes to show how far a bit of local knowledge goes.