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Bride says 'I do' to green wedding
Robert Sutcliffe While most brides dream of a white wedding, one woman from Bradford has been planning a green one.
Jessica Randall, a 24-year-old final year medical student, of East Morton, Keighley, spent several months in Tanzania last year and was struck by the poverty she saw there.
So when her boyfriend, Joe Carrick, a 26-year-old youth and children's worker, proposed she was determined to put the emphasis on "getting married rather than having a big, white wedding".
Even her diamond is from a conflict-free and reputable source – she didn't want blood on her hands – as she tried to keep a "global and Godly perspective" on her big day.
So her wedding dress was bought from Oxfam and the stationery and invitations are on recycled paper. The flowers are coming from her mother's back garden instead of being flown in from South Africa.
Food and wine will be fair trade and organic, while relatives flying in from abroad are paying for carbon offsetting credits. Even the car comes from a company which offsets its emissions.
And instead of irons and toasters, HIV counsellors and donkeys are on this couple's wedding list.
Meanwhile Jessica's father, Canon Sam Randall, the Bishop of Bradford's officer for the Church in the World, has "tried to weave together an inclusive liturgy that doesn't imply that God favours married people with children'".
Jessica said: "It won't be an earnest hair shirt sort of wedding, just a low carbon, fair trade, ecologically friendly one.''
The wedding is due to take place this afternoon in Holborn, London.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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