ONE hundred and fifty wedding guests will share a reception meal made from food saved from the bin next weekend (Saturday, April 30).

Rather than spend thousands on a sumptuous wedding breakfast, bride-and groom-to-be Kim Hughes and Dan Woolnough have turned to REfUSE, a Community Interest Company (CIC) that salvages food that would otherwise be wasted from supermarkets, shops, cafes, market stalls and suppliers and serves it up to diners on a “pay as you feel” basis at pop-up cafes around Durham City.

Most of the food will be collected in the days before the wedding, so the full menu will not be known until at best 24 hours before the guests sit down and expect to be fed.

Nikki Dravers, from REfUSE, said: “It’s like ready, steady, cook for 150 people on the best day of a couple’s life.”

Miss Hughes, a 23-year-old learning disabilities community nurse, said: “My fiancé and I love that REfUSE make beautiful nourishing food out of what would have been thrown away.

“We love that everyone and anyone is invited to enjoy it, it’s a beautiful picture of community.

“As Christians, we believe that stewarding the resources God has given to us as a gift is really important.

“We are honoured and so thankful that REfUSE are supporting us on our special day, on which we can celebrate wonderful food being created out of what has wrongly been called waste.”

The couple have been together since 2014 and Mr Woolnough, 22, proposed last September. Both part of King’s Church Durham, they will be wed at Durham's Elvet Methodist Church on Saturday, April 30 and hold their reception at the Old Church in Sacriston, before departing for honeymoon at a secret destination.

Mim Skinner, from REfUSE, said: “It’s such a privilege to be able to serve a wedding breakfast.

“Our message is about reassigning value to food which has been considered worthless and to be able to cater for such a special occasion is brilliant.”

Miss Dravers added: “The amount of perfectly edible food that is going to landfill is immoral.

“What is lost is not only the food, but all the resources, land and energy used to produce it – a significant environmental impact.

“We love using REfUSE events as a platform to highlight and change the injustices in our food system.”

For more information on REfUSE, visit facebook.com/refusecic