Buxton couple create their dream wedding salvaging items from their scrapyard - saving themselves £24,000

Melissa Drabble, 40, and husband Mark, 41, run scrap metal dealer Tin Man Scrap in Buxton and after they got engaged they decided to build their wedding using some of the hundreds of thousands of items brought in. The pair eventually found tables, chairs, decorations - and even their engagement rings.

Melissa and Mark estimate the wedding ended up costing them £6,000 in total - a huge saving on the £30k they had estimated it would come to.

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."

Childhood sweethearts Melissa and Mark met in 1999, when they were both teenagers. Within three years they had two children: Chloe, now 21, and Nathan, now 20.

They decided to start a small business together after entrepreneurial Mark had begun "meddling in bits of scrap." They turned their garden shed into a tiny waste metal yard before expanding to bigger units as the business grew.

The initial idea was that people would bring their scrap metal to be weighed in and valued for Mark and Melissa to take it away and recycle. But they were finding many items that were too good to be melted down - so they began selling on their best finds.

Their reclamation yard, Derbyshire Reclamation, was then born in 2012 - which became the source of much of their secondhand wedding. By April 2021, they had a date set in place for September - and they began scouring their collections for unique wedding decorations.

Melissa's engagement ring was brought in as scrap gold which they paid just £140 for, while her wedding ring was passed down through her family.

All the tables were free from a local pub which was being demolished, and all the plates and glasses were borrowed from a friend for free.

Melissa, who posts on TikTok under @melissa.drabble, 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."

They also scoured places like Facebook Marketplace to buy items instead of hiring - meaning they could sell them on after. Their £1,500 marquee was found there - and sold on for the exact same price a few months after the wedding.

They got married in a church, but enjoyed the main reception and meal in their own garden, with a friend coming to cook in her kitchen.

They had a buffet made by Melissa's mum and brother in the evening.

Melissa said: "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.”