My eco-friendly wedding by Shiny's Katie Lee

Our own bride-to-be Katie Lee writes:

Let's not beat about the bush: when it comes to your wedding day, it really is all about *you*. But there's no reason why the happiest day of your life (or one of them, at least!) has to come at the earth's expense. At least, that's what I think.

This year, after 12 years together, and 8 years of happily living in sin, Al and I finally decided it was time to get our act together and get married. But since we're both a couple of eco-bores, we thought it was only right that we try to do the whole thing with minimal impact on the environment. I'll be sharing all my experiences here in this weekly column, so if you've got any suggestions or can provide any personal experiences, please do leave me some comments - or contact me on shinykatie[at]gmail.com - I'd love your help!

The wedding is this July, and since I'm very far from being the stereotypical excited bride, I've been hugely disorganised about getting the whole thing going. However, one thing I did manage to crack fairly early on was the venue. Initially, I had big fantasies about a village fayre/festival vibe to the whole day, with a carousel, coconut shy and people camping in beautiful bell tents surrounded by meadowland. I soon begun to stare longingly at sites such as Green & Away, who provide eco-friendly tented conference facilities in the Worcester countryside, Tortuga Tent Hire, as well as countless Yurt-providing marquee hire companies.

However, much as I love the idea of a wedding in the great outdoors, our desire to do as little organising as possible, and the presence of some elderly and infirm relatives (as well as some who just "can't bear the draft"), made us scale back our grand plans. Instead, we started to look at barn venues finally settling on Penrhos Court in Herefordshire. Not only can a lot of people stay over in the actual venue, we can also keep some of that festival vibe alive thanks to the neighbouring farmer's field, where guests are allowed to camp (if you ask nicely). And thanks to Daphne Lambert, owner and chef, we don't even have to worry about the food, since it's all seasonal and organic anyway (though they don't offer tastings, so we're just going to have to trust that it will all be as delicious as all the reviews suggest).

So the venue has been sorted, and now we've just got to sort out the flowers, the rings, the honeymoon, and then, of course, there's the small matter of a wedding dress. If anyone has any suggestions for dresses, I would love to hear them - I haven't even begun trying any on yet and I'm feeling a vague sense of panic beginning to creep in. [via Bridalwave]

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