sherlock holmes ritchie I just… I just don’t like anything in any of the shops. And I’ve been like this for years. Bring back the nineties please. I can do flares and hoodies. Puffball skirts? Not so much.

What I didn’t expect when I went dress shopping was for everything to look so incredible (except for the long flowing Grecian affair, I think you have to be a bit taller than 5 foot to pull that off), and to love all of them as well.

Two weeks ago I went to Oxfam Bridal in Eastbourne. It’s an amazing little place with more dresses than you can shake a bouquet at. Most of them are end of line or catwalk models, so have never been worn before and would otherwise be destined for the bin.

I trooped down there with two of my girly friends and a terrible sense of foreboding. I walked in being all “I want something very plain and simple please” and within five minutes was “…and I wanted beading, and the tiara and the flowers and a veil and some shoes and…”

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michael jackson this is it michael jackson movie I think I tried on everything in the shop, and walked out with the first dress I tried on. It’s amazing, so pretty, and it fits perfectly and is like nothing I’ve seen in any of the shops.

Mr. Destiny psp But the best thing about it? Apart from the knock down price (£300!), it came with a letter from the woman who donated it. She explained how she found it, how much she loved it and how she hopes the person who wears it next loves it as much. She asks that the new bride also donates it back to Oxfam with a letter to carry on the story. How can you not fall in love with that?

But – of course there is a but – I went to all the lovely little boutique shops in Brighton yesterday with my mum. Since I got the first dress I saw, I felt like I had to have a look around just to check I got it right.

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We had an excellent girly day, and I fell in love with a huge, sparkly, beaded meringue in one shop, and then in another put on a dress that just. made. me. go. wow.

And there’s the rub. If money and conscience were no option, I would have the brand new, flown in from China, £1,700 designer dress that is the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen.

The Adventures of Robin Hood film But they are, and I just can’t see I would be happy spending our wedding day wearing it when I know there is another dress out there with a very different story.

I know for many reasons I have to pick the Oxfam dress. But holy crap, being ethical has never felt like such a sacrifice. Curse you, Ian Stuart!

Ask other brides for tips on your ethical wedding dress dilemmas in the Ethical Weddings Forum!

Given the choice of that or a million receipts for 80p which all need logging and filing somewhere – anywhere! – it seemed like the more interesting option. So we spent a horribly eco-bad hour sitting in rush hour traffic between Brighton and Lewes and finally got to our lovely little country pub in Barcombe and he seemed to like it but was very worried about the chairs.

A few days later my mother visited, and naturally she had to see it as well. On route she tells me Dad had called her and said he was very worried about the chairs. Mum said we could get chair covers.

I said, “what in God’s name are you all talking about you mental people? We’re getting married, not having a chair fashion parade”. Well I didn’t. I said that in my head.

Mum and Charlie (her husband) were relatively impressed with our beautiful little country pub and marquee and riverside locale, and started talking about food and toiletry requirements and toastmasters and first dances. In my head, I was saying this: “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh”.

That evening, Toby’s mother called. “I’ve decided to interfere,” she said. And she did.

It was about this point that I decided I wasn’t going to do it. Any of it. No chair covers, no toastmaster, no stupid bloody favours and definitely no first dances. No way Jose.

I sat Toby down and told him “no way Jose” and he said “thank God!” and we set about planning the wedding we actually want to have – not the little country pub wedding we thought we should have.

Re-planning everything was pretty easy to do, especially since we hadn’t really done a lot in the first place. I always said I was going to have a wedding like in the back of the Asterix books, with the outdoor banquet and bonfire, and a bard tied to a tree. So we have begun hunting for a field with a suitable tying-bard-to tree.

We also found these guys www.beautifulworldtents.co.uk, and even though it is way over our budget, knew straight away we had to have one. It’s perfect, and they have a great ethical policy too.

Toby is determined we’ll eat bangers and mash (Ashdown Forest wild boar bangers, natch) and my dad and Sarah (his wife) live half the year in France, so are charged with carting back huge mountains of booze on their travels. Nicely eco, since the journeys would be happening anyway.

We’re going to get Firefly Solar to power the whole thing, have our friends’ bands play – and that’s it. A field, a tent, some food, some wine, some music and all the people we love, especially each other. Unfussy, eco, and very, very us.

Chair covers? Pfft.

He started talking, as he often does, about having babies, to which I replied there would be no babies until a) he stopped smoking b) we were married. He thought about it for a while and then said, “so shall we get married then?” and I said, “shut up”, and he said, “no really”, and I said “shut up” and he said, “no really” and that went on for a while.

When I realised he was serious I immediately made him phone his mother and tell her so he couldn’t back out the next day. Two months later, I have a ring and we have a venue and we even have a vague date. He now claims he was delirious when he asked, but the ring: she speaks otherwise!

The ring was the first big thing we wanted to do. It was obvious to both of us there would have to be an element of ethical-ness about the proceedings, and there was no way I was going to wear a ring of dubious provenance. We wandered around the Lanes looking in windows but nothing was inspiring us. The choice was vast, but no one appeared to be doing anything even slightly right-on.

I had a part-time job in a jewellers when I was studying (ha!) for my A levels so was well aware of the waste and pollution associated with the trade. A book I read recently about the spread of AIDS in Africa had also highlighted to me that supporting the gold and diamond industry was also to support human rights abuses which are not just as simple as one man in one mine having a hard time, but which radiate throughout all of society and impact upon us all.

As we looked I became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of a whole new ring made just for me when there was so much already out there, so we started looking at second hand rings. Then I became even more uncomfortable with the price tags. It’s not that I’m tight with money, it’s just I’ve never really bought into the whole idea of retail therapy. Spending lots of money makes me really really stressed. Swapping and bargaining, on the other hand, is excellent fun.

So we were at a bit of an impasse, when my mother offered me her engagement ring from my father. They were divorced about 400 years ago, and it had been sitting in her jewellery box collecting dust since then.

It was bought in Hatton Garden some time in the 70s, so we have no way of finding out its history, but for us the balance is that we are not using any resources to create something new, or spending any money to create a demand, we are just using what is already there.

It turned out to the perfect solution. Neither of us had any worries about it being bad luck because of my parents failed marriage (is success only measured if you make it till death does you part?), it is shiny enough to appeal to my magpie-like tendencies, and it is the making of a new family heirloom which we can pass on to whichever of our children get married first. If Toby ever stops smoking, of course.

Sarah 
Rocks Magazine