A newly-wed couple had their wedding dinner made entirely of out of date supermarket food.
They hired a waste food charity as caterers to serve up a buffet of huge helpings of rejected gingerbread men, banana skin curries and mushroom goulash instead.
Seigo Robinson, 31, and Romilde Kotzé, 32, also used second hand wedding clothes, wedding rings, and gave a speech promoting the benefits of a sustainable wedding.
The environmentally-conscious pair said they saved more than £10,000 by keeping their special day as green as possible.
Seigo, who runs a business consultancy firm, said: “I don’t like the term waste food because it’s not wasted yet – I prefer food surplus.
“I didn’t even know what was on the menu until she served it up in the wedding.
“We are both pretty unpicky eaters so I guess that helped.
“It made it more special because, for example, her wedding dress was her sister’s and because we care about the environment every part of it made it feel nicer.
“We are very mindful that weddings can be pretty extravagant so we thought about it making it very informal.
“It was probably done on a lower budget, it was leaner but fun-themed.”
The pair from Grantchester, Cambs., paid Foodcycle Cambridge to cook up the vegetarian buffet meal at £7.50 per head.
Foodcycle volunteer Alex Collis said about 60 guests attacked her helpings of mushroom goulash, banana skin curry, mac’n’cheese, scones, apple pie, vegetarian pizzas, and various salads, finger foods and canapés she sourced from Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencers, cash and carries and local suppliers.
Seigo, who runs Atai Consulting promoting the environmental benefits of “circular economy”, said they “attacked” the food with the rest going to homeless shelters and the charity.
He said: “Minimising food waste was part of a wider circular economy-theme to our wedding, which Romilde and I are both passionate about.”
Relatives put together decorations made from second hand material from community scrap stores.
The bridesmaid dresses were second-hand and the couple also their wedding rings were “cheap bronze Roman rings” from an antiques store.
Seigo, who was educated at the University of Cambridge and got the idea after volunteering at the charity in London, said: “The production of metallic objects has a very high environmental impact.
“The rings are nothing special but it’s special to us.”
The pair also saved energy by holding a “silent” disco and only turning on the lights for an hour at their wedding in a historic orchard in the quaint village on June 10.
They also told guests to make donations to a cancer charity instead of buying gifts and even made donations to carbon reducing charities for ones that flew in.
Romilde, a biomedical engineering researcher at the University of Cambridge, said: “It was lovely. It was nice and light, it was relaxing and nice to have family and friends there.”
She said they gave a five minute speech on “circular economy” before going on to thank their guests at the wedding on June 10.
They spent their honeymoon in Sicily as family members wanted to see the Italian island.
But the pair would have gone for a greener holiday in the UK, said Romilde.
The couple declined to say how much their wedding cost exactly but said it was about a third of the average UK wedding cost of £27,000.
Seigo said: “Our key priority was to have a fun and circular wedding – budget wasn’t our foremost concern.
“However, running a circular wedding meant using local suppliers, cutting unnecessary stuff out and reusing things where we did need them – like the dress!
“All in, it was less than £70 per person which I think is around a third the average wedding”.
