"Within like 30 minutes I knew this was the one," Lara Peters said of the second-hand wedding dress she had just worn to her marriage – in the Netherlands' busiest rail station.
Peters, 42, had found the dress two days earlier in a shop run by Free Fashion, a Dutch foundation devoted to recycling clothing to combat waste – a cause close to her heart.
That is why she and her 44-year-old husband Mathijs Dordregter chose sustainability as the theme of their wedding – with the help of Free Fashion.
The organisation says it is the kind of trend people everywhere will need to adopt if humankind wants to curb over-consumption and its destructive effect on the planet.
"The message that during your wedding you can also choose sustainable options is very important to me," the bride explained.
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Peters works in communications in the sustainable development field, so the couple's choice to hold their wedding ceremony in the bustle of Utrecht rail station had a certain logic to it.
Nina Reimert of the Free Fashion foundation helped organise the event.
"We know that in terms of emissions... producing a wedding dress is similar to something like 250 kilometres by car," she said.
"And they're made of all different materials so they are really hard to recycle and almost everything is polyester," she added.
With 17,000 weddings a year in the Netherlands, she explained, that adds up to a lot of emissions: "It's a nightmare."
It was to draw attention to the over-consumption inherent in many weddings that the Free Fashion foundation decided to make an online appeal to convince couples to approach the happy day from a different perspective.
For as the old saying for weddings goes: "Something old, something new; Something borrowed, something blue."
Love me, love my planet
For Free Fashion's co-founder Lot Van Os, opting for a second-hand bridal dress – something that is normally only worn once – sends a strong message.
"When you celebrate love you should also celebrate love for the planet," he said.
Free Fashion's team of 800 volunteers is much in demand by local councils who want to meet their targets for reducing waste and recycling.
The foundation also works with businesses, helping them organise exchanges of clothing between employees.
For Van Os, this practice of exchanging rather than constantly buying new items is a habit people are going to have to acquire in the future.
This "circular transition", he says is something we are all going to have to go through.
"It's not a matter of if but when we are going to change," he said.
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To underline the wedding's sustainability theme, a pop-up store at the rail station offered dozens of wedding dresses, free to anyone willing to sign up to the concept.
"There are now already enough clothes in the world for the next six generations," said a sign printed outside the store.
Both the bride and the bridegroom wore second-hand outfits for the big day – as did all their guests.
And the sustainability theme did not end there, said Peters.
Their wedding meal was vegetarian – less harmful for the environment – and they travelled to the venue on bikes or by public transport.
"Everything I bought for the wedding was already used at other weddings," added the bride.
As for her wedding dress, she promised: "It's not going to be hanging in my closet!" – AFP
