From the hugely expensive dress to the imported flowers, the average wedding is a bank-breaking, planet-wrecking affair. There is a greener, less stressful approach, if you make the most of charity shops, hedgerows and car boot sales
In some ways, the term “ethical wedding” is as contradictory as, say, “sexy footbath” or “welcome ingrown hair”. And yet, after years of railing against the marital-industrial complex, I still wanted to give it a go. When, in a rather unlikely move, after seven years of cohabitation and nearly five years of co-parenting, my partner and I decided to get married, we were both keen to keep it as environmentally friendly, inexpensive and ideologically sound as we could. If you’re expecting rings woven from toenail clippings and a wedding meal pulled out of a wheelie bin, I’m sorry to disappoint. But the whole thing did cost us around the same as my parents’ wedding in 1992 and about the only thing we bought new was the wine. And we had that delivered by bike.
Our wedding came in two parts. First, there was the legal bit: since the first few months of our relationship played out almost entirely in places located along the 38 bus route, it seemed fitting to do this in Hackney town hall in east London. So my parents, partner, son and I all got the train from Oxford and on to the tube carrying our wedding gear in rucksacks and holdalls. I got changed in the toilets of a cinema over the road, my ex-boyfriend and his wife were included in our Covid-safe list of 14 guests, my son lay down in the middle of the carpet during the ceremony and chatted loudly to himself to stave off his inevitable four-year-old boredom and I wore an outfit I’d made for a grand total of £8. Including underwear.
