fill your wedding for free - part one

Why stop at the home and garden?!?

With the average cost of UK weddings clocking in at around the 21 thousand pound mark, and with me currently lined up to have two weddings next year (an English ceremony and a Hindu ceremony, same person... don't worry) I thought it perhaps wise to apply the same principles by which I live my home life to my impending nuptials.

There are, of course, stumbling blocks.

And our most prominent stumbling block is numbers... y'know I mentioned a Hindu ceremony... yep, Indian family... by Indian wedding standards our wedding will be small, in terms of finding a freebie venue and convincing guests to each bring a dish, it was a bit of a no-go (not that I was actually brave enough to ask)

In our horribly post-modern world that is despicably tainted by celebrity culture, the ideal of the fairy tale dream wedding is rammed down your throat, leaving the bitter taste of huge over-inflated cost in your mouth as you struggle not to choke.

But keeping costs down is where it counts, if you're as financially savvy and creatively inclined as I am it is not only rewarding on the pocket, it is also a personal reward in itself as you peruse the 'accepted' versions of weddings and the inherent cost of them and realise that a) you don't really need all that stuff, and b) you can put your own personal stamp on proceedings for a fraction of the advertised costs

Obviously, there are two people in a relationship, and quite often a few more people that are looking to voice their opinions and have their own say on your wedding, so agreement is key

Currently we don't agree on chair covers

She wants them, and has rather admirably negotiated them into the cost of the caterer (Go Team Super-Scrimper!!)

I, on the other hand, agree that if we are using the venue's chairs then they will definitely need covering, however I have suggested an alternative seating arrangement.

Our front room is home to a number of abandoned chairs, previously I have visually logged a catalogue of discarded chairs, and certainly, since wedding plans have begun I have spotted a number of cast-out chairs that would be warmly welcomed by myself at the wedding

By my current count, I would only have needed to find another 142 chairs before next April to fill the required quota, but of course, this would also have meant finding storage for a rather hefty amount of chairs, and I've got barely any more room at home already for free stuff, let alone some 160 chairs!!

So I have relented on this idea (begrudgingly)... 

table decorations however...

stray sofas 11

the last time i posted sofas was in july??

why must the months keep hurtling past so quickly?

by the looks of it, this sofa could be related to this guy.  but i think he's is a bit tougher, for a start, he has managed to keep his cushions, and is still in a rather respectable condition.  and secondly, it looks like he has knocked out a fridge in order to get a prime place in front on the bin shelter, that he looks longingly at, wishing to get inside.

all mod cons

and now for a little bit of time travel, not too far, but lets set our dials for a year ago.  those heady days of a summer passed when stray sofas seemed to be around every corner. at first i thought the strays had been hibernating for the winter but perhaps enfield has managed to clear up its infestationof street furniture much the same way that trafalger square has been cleared of pigeons.

let us journey to July 2009.  and a stray sofa that had a reputation that found its way back to me, i checked it out and my, it was a thing of sheer beauty. who could ever ask for more?

but please, be careful not to tread on any butterflys.

stray sofas 9

fully furnished

it seems to me that over the winter a lot of the strays that are usually out on the streets may have gone into hibernation, the few times that i have seen sofas i've either not had my camera or not had a chance to stop

so let me use this lull as a chance to play catch up yet again

and how apt that this scenic alleyway near the centre of Waltham Cross with good travel connections nearby, is only a mere stones throw away from a flat that i am considering looking at.

as you can see, this alley is fully furnished with a discarded mattress, a stray sofa and a sewing machine, aswell as a number of suprise goodies supplied in black bags.

an excellent oppurtunity for first time buyers

stray sofas 7

after a hiatus of about a month the strays are back, for my girlfriend and for all the other people that make their way to my blog... many of whom, just like my girlfriend, moan about the photos of sofas yet find themselves strangely drawn to them and actually inform me when they have spotted stray sofas themselves.

you guys are great.

street furniture

the blog hasn't found much time for the strays recently, the first sofas of 2010 are coming (in fact they are from 2009, there is quite a backlog)

but i'll ease you back in with afew pieces that i found furnishing the streets of Enfield last summer

where the stray sofas are

this blog is facing a bit of a backlog, there are still afew more videos i want to toss your way, a handful of poems that are waiting for their time and any other number of random bits and bobs that i think 'aaah, i might blog about that!'

which also means it has been a while since the stray sofas turned up on here

and they are back with a vengeance

seemingly taking refuge together, a small tribe of stray sofas, chairs and general bric-a-brac have gathered not far from Brick Lane

and it may look like a dump, and street life can be tough, but for now the leadership of this tribe doesn't seem to be in question

the welcoming comitee

thats it, the holiday is over, the reminiscing is over, and something like normal blogging should resume although i do feel that my music has taken a bit of a back seat lately so perhaps i should make posting a little less frequent until there is at least a little Hunchbakk news to speak of

now, i have never had anyone waiting for me at airport arrivals with a board with my name on it, but Enfield certainly seems to know how to welcome me back

it was as if the sofas had been waiting for me, two in the same day and then a family of abandoned chairs a couple of days later, as well as a dumped divan bed and mattress slumming it with a shopping trolley

oh, and since then, a new addition to the end of the street gang - a burned out car (no photos of that one just yet)








Enfield, i love you but you're bringing me down.

.

stray television

during a spot of very late spring cleaning, an old TV was found that had been sat around doing nothing but gathering dust

it had served its purpose, then after it's years guarantee was over it promptly started going wrong

(i do not have exact dates to substantiate this claim, but we all know that is how it goes)

and out into the front garden it went


today i called the council to arrange for it to be collected and go where all old consumables live out the rest of their days, the soonest pick up available was next tuesday

and i thought perhaps i should get afew shots of the TV sat there looking abandoned in the front garden to add to my growing collection of stray sofas and other household goods

but the TV obviously had other plans, realising it was no longer wanted it didn't choose to hang around


when i left the house it had already gone

taking a dump

even tho this toilet has now been forced to fend for itself on the streets, its a relief to know that it is still accompanied by some reading material

lonely chair

discarded along with a pile of other rubbish, this lonely chair gazes out at the world beyond the school gates

and it isn't just sofas

you thought sofas had a tough time out on the streets, but there are afew other household items that have to make it on their own after being abandoned...

Stray Sofas 4

so after looking at somebody else's photography and that brief mention of the stray sofas project i thought it was time to get on with it again, especially when i realised how few i had actually published on here so far, and how many i have seen recently





this stray was spotted in Waltham Cross

hold on tight, plenty more to follow in good time

Stray Sofas 3

and on we go with the Stray Sofas, it was a few weeks ago that i found these two huddled together, perhaps they were clinging together through fear of mutilation, or perhaps they were just new to street life since being discarded, but at least they had each other.

Mutilated Sofas

after this past week of zombie obsessing it seemed kind of appropriate to feature an un-dead sofa

hacked to pieces, and sitting morbidly in my neighbour's front garden last week