Salvaging scrap helped wedding couple save thousands

The Drabbles said they paid £6,500 for a wedding they believe would have cost about £30,000

A couple have explained how salvaging unwanted items dumped at the scrapyard they run helped them save thousands of pounds on their dream wedding.

Mark and Melissa Drabble restored and borrowed as much as they could and believe this cut the cost of their big day from about £30,000 to £6,500.

Among their finds were old church pews and one of Fred Dibnah's former furnaces.

The Drabbles said much of what they used just needed "a bit of TLC".

The marquee floor was plywood salvaged from a closed shop

The couple, who run Tin Man Scrap in Buxton, said they had the idea for a second-hand wedding when they began to spot things they liked among the waste people were dumping.

Mrs Drabble, 40, said: "We decided to get married quite suddenly and, with the nature of our work, we come across so many things every day.

"We looked at stuff and thought 'oh, we can use this for the wedding'.

"Before we knew it, I was having a little challenge with myself to try to get things from work.

"With a little bit of paint and TLC, we made stuff out of what we were finding."

The couple restored an old phone box from a skip

The Drabbles, who were wed at St Peter's church in Buxton in September 2021, said they saved most of the money on the reception that they held in a nearly-new marquee - bought on Facebook and then later sold again - in their garden.

Mr Drabble, 41, said: "The floor of the marquee was made out of plywood we got from a shop that closed in Buxton.

"The bar was made from 1800s church pews. We just tried to be creative."

He said after the ceremony, the 25 guests kept warm around a firepit that had once been a furnace in the now-closed heritage centre opened after the death of the celebrity steeplejack Fred Dibnah.

Mrs Drabble said she saved money on a wedding bouquet by getting a friend to make one from paper flowers, rather than fresh ones.

A friend made Melissa's wedding bouquet out of paper flowers

The couple borrowed crockery from friends who ran pubs for their wedding reception and swapped some old filing cabinets for the chairs they used.

The tables were free from a pub that was set to be demolished.

And a skip full of junk from a theatre production company yielded a battered old red phone kiosk, which became a place to serve cake.

Mrs Drabble added: "A lot of the time, you find modern things are quite poorly made but vintage things are a lot better quality.

"We thought it was pointless buying new stuff when we could just find it."

The couple admitted owning their own scrapyard gave them an advantage in getting hold of things to re-use, but said most people could save wedding money by trawling car boot sales, auctions and second hand shops.

Mr Drabble said: "You don't need money for the dream wedding."

Melissa and Mark on their wedding day