Couple create dream wedding using items from their scrapyard - saving £24,000
A couple who own a scrapyard created their own dream wedding from scratch using salvaged items from their scrapyard - saving themselves over £20,000 in the process.
When Melissa Drabble, 40, and husband Mark, 41, got engaged they decided to use some of the hundreds of thousands of items brought into their scrap metal dealer company.
The pair managed to salvage chairs, candlesticks, cake stands and goblets from skips, which they upcycled, as well as disco balls and a real phone box to decorate the marquee they bought secondhand for their garden wedding celebration.
All of the tables for their big day came free from a local pub which was being demolished, and even Melissa's engagement ring was brought in as scrap gold and cost them just £140.
The couple's wedding costed an estimated £6k in total - a huge £24,000 saving on the £30k they had estimated it would come to.
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Melissa said: "To have a wedding that was different was always my aim. I love to stand out from the crowd.
"I felt it was my challenge to make our wedding from things we could reuse and recycle.
"On the day, guests asked, 'Where did you get this?'. And I told them, 'The skip!'.
"It was a lot of pressure to get everything done but it went to plan on the day and looked even better than I hoped."
The childhood sweethearts, who run scrap metal dealer Tin Man Scrap in Buxton, Derbyshire, met in 1999 when they were both teenagers and went on to have two children, now 21 and 20.
They decided to start a small business together after entrepreneurial Mark started "meddling in bits of scrap" and turned their garden shed into a waste metal yard before expanding to bigger units.
The initial idea was that people would bring scrap metal to be weighed in and valued for them to take it away and recycle, but after finding many items that were too good to be melted down they began selling on their best finds.
It led to them establishing Derbyshire Reclamation, where the items can be sold, in 2012, which also became the source of much of their secondhand wedding.
They also scoured places like Facebook Marketplace to buy items instead of hiring - meaning they could sell them on after - including their £1,500 marquee which they sold for the exact same price a few months after the wedding.
They also snatched up garden decorations including a 1920s merry-go-round, vintage bumper car and an elephant playground set which they restored to later sell on.
On top of that, the couple borrowed plates and glasses from a friend while Melissa's wedding ring was passed down through her family.
Melissa said: "I had lots and lots of help from my close friends who helped me every single night making things and painting.
"It actually bought us closer together - that's what weddings are for."
The couple wed in a church but held their reception and meal in their own garden, with a friend cooking a meal and an evening buffet provided by the bride's mum and brother.
She added: "The wedding wasn’t intentionally a money saving challenge.
"Ultimately a wedding is about the marriage and we wanted to make sure it stayed the focal point.
"Sometimes weddings can be so big that it kind of feels like the emotion doesn’t exist.
"But because of the nature of our jobs, I knew that I wanted everything to be handmade and personal!
"I also really wanted to do things that could be kept and cherished for years to come."
