Carmen Elaine

Our wedding: ethical and on a budget (but still fun)

  1. Venue
  2. Decorations
  3. Outfits
  4. Jewellery
  5. Hair & Make-up
  6. Entertainment
  7. Transport
  8. Confetti
  9. Catering
  10. Some more advice

It’s an odd thing planning a wedding. There is so much convention to either embrace or reject. There are so many questions to answer that would not normally cross your mind. Your relationship goes from being a beautiful, sacred thing between you and your partner to the theme for a party.

Before the lockdowns, my husband and I were much more in favour of an elopement than a traditional wedding. But after such a prolonged time without the people we love in our lives, it felt like a good ol’ knees up was the right thing to do; we could get everybody together and have a lovely day.

The first thing to do when planning a wedding (or making any decision, in fact) is to answer the question, “What is important to us?”

Other than the actual loving each other bit, we decided the main things were:

In terms of how to decide on what your budget is, the golden rule is do not go into debt (or, at the very least, go into it with a plan and a schedule to pay it back). This is stealing from your married life. If you have a dream day in mind, it’s fine to wait a little longer till you can afford it. The ideal budget will vary dramatically from couple to couple and that is why it’s important to first establish what is most important to you about your wedding day. If it turns out the location is quite low down on your list of priorities, for example, you can save a lot of money by going down a less traditional venue root. If you’re not too bothered about transport, book a taxi or have a friend drive. It may be that you can tick all your boxes by going to a registry office in your nicest frocks and meeting everybody at the pub.

I would recommend that, whatever you decide your budget is, factor in a small cushion for unforeseen expenses. With any luck you will only be marrying once and this means you are not an expert at planning weddings; you will likely forget something and you will be glad to have considered this early on.

Venue

Before I go into detail, I want to get a little woo-woo here. The number one thing that aided our wedding planning and our ability to stay calm throughout was the idea that, before we even started looking at venues, our perfect wedding that ticked all of our boxes already existed. It existed in its entirety in the future. Our job was simply to patiently move towards it by taking appropriate action; the plans were not to be forged out of rock. The plans were there, fully formed. This mindset is absolute gold and I highly encourage you to adopt it when planning something that has the tendency to feel overwhelming.

Anyway, venues.

I emailed a couple of local venues for price lists; a hotel and a brewery. Upon receiving them, I laughed. “Oh, what an excellent joke,” I exclaimed. The numbers they offered were very high ones and, when it dawned on me that I was not an unwitting member of a comedy sketch, I realised that venues like these were not an option. It had to be a registry office.

Registry offices, in my mind, are grim places. Concrete, grey and not a patch of grass for miles. I decided then to look for the nicest registry office in the local area; whatever that was would have to do.

This is what I found:

Through an incredible stroke of luck, we found a listed, beautiful wedding venue with a gorgeous ceremony room that held 70 people. It was all so relaxed and charming and with stunning gardens. And it only cost us £438 which included every part of it. It was an hour away from our home town with great transport links for our guests. It was perfect.

So then we needed to find a reception room. I liked the idea of hiring a hall that we could decorate ourselves and so started my search with church halls. The downside of this is that often you have to hire in your own furniture. We also had to consider how our guests would get from the ceremony hall to the reception venue.

And then, again, like magic, I stumbled across the fact that Hexham Abbey, a beautifully historic building originally built in 674 AD and a two minute walk from the ceremony, had a reception room:

Not only does it look like Hogwarts from the outside, but this is the main ballroom:

We had access to the venue the day before so we (plus the best man and the bridal party) were able to set up in advance of the main event. Hiring this room also meant we had use of the entire floor including a bar, professional-standard kitchen and some nice off-shoot rooms that we could have held the drinks reception in if the weather was poor.

Speaking of the drinks reception, we held it in the courtyard of the Abbey while a jazz trio (the groom’s brother plus two musicians they know from the local jam night) performed. We bought all prosecco and wine from Aldi which, even with the venue’s corkage included, meant a significant saving. It also meant we could guarantee all the drinks would be vegan.

For the use of the hall and its adjoining rooms, the courtyard, the Abbey’s staff and furniture, it cost £990. There was an extra £150 for the plates and glasses along with a £1 laundry fee for each napkin we used. This may not initially seem that cheap but, when compared to alternatives, it is pretty good.

Decorations

We decorated the tables with foliage sourced by a local florist. I struggled to find a company who specialised in low-impact, ethical flowers so I just explained to the florist nearest our home what our values were. We asked that everything be local and seasonal where possible.

I also bought a couple of bouquets from Arena Flowers and shared the flowers among some recycled jars for a pretty, wildflower look. We decorated the tables with them and placed some around the cake.

Speaking of the cake, this absolutely beauty cost £35 from a local cafe. They were so lovely to decorate it in an extra-special way for no additional cost and also not to charge us sky-high prices just because it was a wedding. We bought one that was relatively small because the caterer was providing dessert. The cake topper came from a seller on Etsy!

For the name cards (we toyed with the idea with not doing a seating plan at all but the lady in charge of weddings at the Abbey warned us that, in her experience, this had paved the way for chaos), I made them on Canva and it’s as easy as it looks. For the seating chart, I arranged the names in a way I liked in Canva and then printed it out. I then sellotaped it to the back of a canvas, shone my phone torch through and traced everything onto the canvas with a calligraphy pen my Maid of Honour got me from her honeymoon!

I searched “wedding decorations” into Facebook marketplace at least twice a day. One day, a bride was selling a whole bunch of things I could get excited about: one big easel, a bunch of little easels, unworn slippers for dancing, three light boxes with letters, some pretty wooden boxes and some bits of wood that looked quite nice. And there was something so lovely about actually meeting the lady whose unused wedding bits I was taking.

For the small easels, we printed out some photographs of important moments/cats to display:

I also had some jars with water set up for the bridesmaids to put their bouquets into. This meant that 1. They wouldn’t have to carry them around and 2. We had extra decorations. I didn’t let myself get too concerned about what did and didn’t go together; ultimately, pretty things look pretty and that was enough for me.

Outfits

My dress was from Bridal Reloved in York, a small shop who well second-hand wedding dresses. My dress was the first one I tried on. I wasn’t sure, at first, whether it was that dress or just wedding dresses more generally that I liked; but after trying a few more on, I realised that I just felt comfortable in the first one. I liked them all but my friends commented on the fact that I smiled so much more in the first than the others. So that was the one I ended up getting!

My shoes were from Beyond Skin, an amazing ethically made, vegan shoe company who unfortunately don’t exist anymore.

My veil was the one Charles’s mother wore for her wedding and a friend of ours let me borrow the headdress.

Charles’s suit was a Ted Baker faded blue eco suit that we bought in the sale. This was a perfect example of us not overthinking anything. He knew he’d like a blue suit and so we looked online. The suit we ended up buying was on some crazy discount so we just bought it and had it tailored to him when it arrived. His shoes were the Albert Cap Toe Derby Cognac Tan from Avesu, a vegan shoe company.

The bridesmaids’ dresses were easily the most difficult part of the whole planning process. I had looked at some options from sustainable brands but they were way out of my price range. So second-hand it would have to be! I created a Google form for my bridesmaids to fill in with their preferences and sizes and set upon the grand task of searching every corner of Depop and eBay for five dresses that would complement each other without matching. It took hours. HOURS. It also meant buying dresses that I could not return and so I ended up with eleven dresses in total; one I bought for a ridiculous 99p, the most expensive was around £90 but most were around the £40 mark. It meant that my bridesmaids had some choice in what they wore. I ended up donating the spare dresses to the prom dress donation service at the school I work at.

I loved the way it turned out. There was a degree of personality in each one that I wouldn’t have had if they were all wearing the same dress.

The groomsmen wore their own suits and had matching lapel flowers. As I have mentioned, the wedding day was very laid back and a perfect example of this is when it transpired that some of Charles’s groomsmen didn’t actually know they were groomsmen until they were given their boutonniere.

Jewellery

We had a couple of rings in the family that we were fortunate enough to be able to use as our wedding rings. Mine was from my mother’s marriage to my step-dad and Charles’s was his late grandad’s; a touching sentiment as well as a beautiful ring. If I had to give any advice regarding this, it would be to avoid any superstition or unhelpful attachment around the life of rings. Sometimes a new start feels like it demands a new item to represent it; but it is the symbol you choose it to be.

Hair & Make-up

The make-up artist I chose specialises in using vegan and cruelty free make-up. She did the make-up for me, the bridesmaids and my mother. The make-up lasted all day and looked amazing in the photographs. Our hair-stylist, Samantha, did such a beautiful job and is such a sweet lady.

Entertainment

We are fortunate enough to both be musicians and have lots of friends and family who are musicians. We also work in a school where our head of department was kind enough to allow us to borrow a backline that our guests could perform on. And another friend of ours, a gigging musician, let us borrow some lights. So, instead of a band, we had the instruments set up and so commenced the Jameoke part of the evening; all unrehearsed but a lot of fun. I sang Dynamite by Taio Cruz because it is, quite simply, the best song.

Instead of a DJ, we made a Spotify playlist. It was great but, if we had our time again, we would probably make it earlier than the day before so we could take it for a spin before the big day.

Transport

Speaking of being incredibly fortunate, Charles’s best man has a Volkswagen camper van. He picked me and my Dad up from our AirBnb and it really is the most beautiful vehicle I think I’ve ever seen. He used the decorations from his sister’s wedding to accessorise it and, every time we walked past it that day, there was a stranger getting their photo taken with it.

It is worth remembering that there is nothing wrong with asking for a favour; they can always say no. But we shouldn’t let our reluctance to be annoying stop us from reaching out. People usually like being helpful and, if you have a good relationship with someone who can help, it’s always worth asking.

Confetti

Charles’s mother works at a gardens and so she painstakingly made confetti from petals. It looked so, so beautiful and meant that nothing went to waste.

Catering

Our caterer was Fig Leaf Plant Based Life, a vegan caterer based in Whitley Bay. The owner, Paula, made us our own menu based on my Filipino heritage and our love of Japanese food. It was incredible. It was served buffet style and cost us £22 a head.

The menu:

I appreciate it’s not always possible but I highly recommend hiring a venue that will allow you to bring in your own caterer. It means you get so many more options – a lot of them more competitive with pricing.

Some more advice

Guests

Don’t be afraid to be extra picky with your guests; you can’t invite everybody, unfortunately. People generally understand this and, if they don’t, that is very much their problem. I’m a big believer in seeing things for what they truly are and if you are not close enough to somebody to know that you simply must invite them or the day wouldn’t feel right, that’s something important to have learned. It doesn’t mean you like them any less, it’s just that relationships change and that’s okay. Inviting people out of obligation or fear is not a recipe for a happy day.

Expectation

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.”

Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4-5

During potentially stressful times, we must remember the above quote with all our might. When planning your wedding, you will make your choices; but the choices available to you are out of your control. These may be because of your area, budget or simply because the thing you have envisioned is something you have invented. Part of the enjoyment, for us, of planning our wedding was seeing how things unfolded. Planning such a beautiful thing with tension and annoyance goes completely against our ultimate desires; but to be playful, curious and explorative meant that we met every situation with a helpful attitude.

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