Five environmentally conscious students have set their sights on rejuvenating the trend of upcycling used wedding wares and pre-loved merchandise with their first wedding fair.

St Ives based Sarah Kevern and Linda Wood are current Success course students at Truro and Penwith College, as well as working to organise weddings at the town's Guildhall.

Success courses encourage people who are already in employment to utilise the skills learnt on the course within their workplace, which is what the pair did by hosting My Big Upcycled Wedding Fayre.

While promoting upcycling, the event also raised money for St Ives charity Kidz R Us, and Bodmin based student Charli Hanney said: “We wanted to support a charity that works to improve the local community within St Ives.”

The event gave people the chance to discover something old and something new at a lower price than the high street, while keeping trade within the community and supporting smaller local businesses.

Student Samantha Healy, who works for WMC Retail Partners in St Austell, said: “For our first attempt, I think that we really achieved something that will last and be repeated again on a larger scale – bigger wedding fairs will soon catch on to the trend and host a pre-loved section too.”

One lucky visitor also won the fantastic prize of free hire of the Mayor’s Parlour for a wedding venue after entering the charity raffle.

Event management tutor, Davina Bohane said: “To organise and manage an event within the space of only 10 weeks, within a small group of students who have never met before is such an amazing achievement.”

And Val Williams, a student based in Newquay, hopes to utilise her new skills to competently arrange events for her current project support role and feel confident about doing it. She also wishes to continue on to another Success course in the future to broaden her business knowledge further with the help of funding from the the EU's European Social Fund Widening Participation Through Skills programme.

St Ives Linda Taylor said of the occasion: “It looks to have been a successful event, particularly the networking of small local businesses and of course the funds raised for the charity, Kidz R Us.”

Anyone interested in Success courses at Truro and Penwith College can contact success@truro-penwith.ac.uk or call 01872 242711, and the college is running a higher level skills day on April 20 with a free buffet lunch and refreshments, which can be booked at http://bit.ly/hlsday