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Interview: The Generous Wedding

The last in our Wedding Season, Sarah Bainbridge asks Carla Harding about her experiences as a generous bride.

On the 4th of Novemeber 2006, Carla Trundle and Steve Harding tied the knot in
the pretty Southern English town of Chichester.

News of their engagement had spread fast amongst their numerous friends around the world and very soon it reached our ears. Carla has been a friend of Living Generously since we launched in 2005 and a friend of Living Generouslys’
Director, Pete, even longer.

In need for guinea-pigs for our newly developed wedding service, we asked Carla
if she and Steve wanted to use Living Generously as their gift-list provider.
The wonderful pair, under very little coercion, readily accepted. Their
gift-list was set up, many wonderfully gift-wrapped goats were bought, the big
day came around and all went swimmingly.

Since those early days(!) the wedding service has grown exponentially and many
weddings later, we are quite surprised that so many people would like our nutty
idea. So nine months on we wanted to catch up with Mrs Carla Harding to find out her experience of a Living Generously wedding? 

 Hey Carla!

  Hey!

So married nine months?

It's gone so fast!

 
How did you meet Steve?

Steve and I knew each other for many years before moving from friends to something more in February  2005.  Steve was an English and Music Student at the University I was studying Dance and Arts.  We were also part of a fantastic youth and student Church called Warehouse, connected to Revelation Church.  We spent six years being mates, making cups of tea and nattering in various kitchens and living rooms until the day I decided I wanted to learn chess and Steve declared a desire to teach me.  I have been called ‘dim witted’ by friends as it never crossed my mind that this might be a ploy to get to know me better.  We built our very own chessboard and sculpted clay chess figures over many long afternoons whilst Steve taught me the rules of the game.  The evening of our first official game he invited me around for dinner and asked me out.  I was pretty blown away, it was rather romantic.   Here's a blog article about it...

 

When did you guys get engaged?

We got engaged in the beautiful city of Venice in Italy.  We taking a few days to explore the city and through some clever manipulation of the truth Steve had me totally convinced he wasn't going to propose.  We spent most of the morning wandering the city, riding the vaperettos and exploring the magic of a city on a lagoon.  We were standing on the roof of the Basillica San Marco, an incredibly opulent Cathedral on the famous St Mark's Square, and all I could think was if Steve was ever going to ask me to be his wife this would be the perfect place.  It was like he read my mind because as I turned to smile at him he was pulling a ring box from his bag and getting down on one knee.  I was overwhelmed and happier than I'd ever been in my life.  I think the only day that topped it was our actually Wedding Day. Read my blog of the day and see our photo's.

 

Apart from us twisting your arm, why did you want to have a wedding gift-list
with Living Generously?

Steve and I are very blessed.  Both sides of our family are incredibly loving, supportive and generous so we were quite prepared for life together.  We had a home and a small gift list of things we hadn't accumulated in our single years but there were only 40 items and 400 guests.  Rather than accumulate more stuff we really wanted to channel everyone's generosity somewhere that would bless our hearts as much as our home.

 

How did you find setting your gift-list up? Were there endless arguments about
whether to get goats or snails?

No actually, our real challenge was to not add too many initiatives to the list.  We started with charities and projects we had some connection to and then branched out into ‘business start-up grants’, educational projects and emergency shelters.  It was a lot more rewarding and a lot easier than choosing our Debenhams store gift-list

Did the little Wedding List Cards work in your invites? 

The gift-list cards looked lovely, really stylish!  [for our invites] We went for a tri-fold, black and white minimal invitation with just the two gift-list cards and a sparkler inside. The [Living Generously] cards were simple, clear and small.  I liked them.

How did you keep track of your gifts? Was it a headache?

We found the tracking service for gifts that had been bought very easy to use.  We decided to stop checking it though after the first few gifts as we wanted the surprise of opening them the morning after our Wedding.   

What did your guests think about the idea or did they just humor you?

Some of our guests were a little confused by the concept and chose to buy us more traditional gifts, but we were surprised by how many people embraced the idea and bought multiple Living Generously gifts.  Our family got so carried away they bought 8 gifts from our list.  They just loved being able to give to so many projects.  Many friends commented on it on our Wedding Day and many of my engaged friends are now using the idea for their own Weddings.

Did you get the gift cards, or did people forget?

We got the gift cards! They were absolutely lovely. They came in elegant white Living Generously cards and every time we opened one, I was nearly moved to tears by the generosity of our friends and how their gift had impacted someone's life.

 
How did you get all the things you needed for your new home? A goat in Africa
is great, but it doesn’t stand in for a toaster does it?

Haha!  Well we were absolutely spoilt rotten so we had plenty of presents to open, our home is now fully kitted out with everything we could need, so the Living Generously cards and presents were a real delight.  We felt a little less guilty for being so outrageously blessed!

 

How easy was it to work out what people had bought you, so you could write them
‘thank you’ notes?

It was very easy, they all gave us cards and notes with their gift.
 

So after all the excitement how does it feel now to have had such an alternative
wedding list? Any regrets or things you would have done differently?

None what so ever.  I would use the list service again for Birthday's and Christmas, we really don't need any more stuff.

Comments/hints to anyone who wants to do the same thing or who wants to buy
someone an alternative gift for their wedding?

Go for it!  Use the Living Generously Wedding Service exclusively or as a complimentary option to a tradition list!

cx 

Find out more about Living Generously Weddings.

 

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