The Natural Wedding Company directory is full of fantastic businesses offering brides- and grooms-to-be products and services to make their wedding day more unique with an eco-conscious twist.  Today I’m going to share my personal experience of the beautiful gift service of one of the newest businesses to join our handpicked suppliers – there’s also a special offer for TNWC readers so scroll to the bottom for full details.

Metta Eggs offers a very unique and special gift experience that was “born out of the desire to provide loving, individual and positive testimonies to people at every key stage of their lives, and to give those who love them an engaged and participating role.”  These pretty handmade clay eggs have messages from your family and friends hidden inside of them, with each tiny egg rolled in glitter or meadow flowers seeds and then nestled in a fair trade box.

These ones we received are covered with the meadow flower seeds…

Metta Eggs can be used in a variety of ways for weddings – a friend or family member can commission Metta Eggs in the lead up to your wedding day, you can include it on your gift list, it could make a great alternative to a wedding guestbook, or you can even have a Metta Egg stag or hen party where you create the eggs yourself.

The lovely Libby who runs Metta Eggs invited myself and Mr Rigg to receive a box of Metta Eggs to celebrate our first wedding anniversary in May.  As Metta Eggs are usually gifted to someone, we nominated my mother-in-law to help us tell our family and friends so as to keep the messages a surprise for us.

As part of the Metta Eggs experience, you get a personalised website created for you – an email invitation is sent to your family and friends (wherever they are in the world – so a great way to include people close to you that might not be able to attend your wedding) including a link to the website.  Your family and friends can then leave their personal messages to you via the website, with all messages remaining private (unless you wish to share them) – they can also see who has already left you a message.

Here’s an example of what your website would look like…

As the recipients of Metta Eggs, we waited patiently for the messages to come in and the exciting day when our box would arrive.  There are many ways you could choose to open your eggs once you receive them – perhaps on your honeymoon, maybe one egg a week, or even one a year on your anniversary – for us, when that gorgeous wooden chest arrived we couldn’t wait to read the messages and so decided to open them all at once!

Inside the wooden chest (which is so beautiful!) was a scroll tied up with green velvet ribbon and nestled amongst shredded tissue paper the first sight of our glittering eggs.

We unrolled the scroll, which was addressed to us and included the names of everyone who’d written us a message – to see those names of our family and friends I began to feel the excited anticipation of what they might have written.  There were also tips on how to crack the eggs and how you can sow those eggs rolled in the meadow flower seeds.

With much trepidation, Mr Rigg and I selected our first egg – a silver glittery one, so small and beautifully formed that you wonder how a message can fit inside it.  We discovered that using a nut cracker was the best way for us to get into our eggs – as the first egg split open we spied a tiny roll of paper encased in a protective slip of plastic.

As we unrolled that first message and began to read it, it dawned on me how wonderful and special it was that our friends and family from around the world had taken the time to reflect on our wedding day and write us a note.  Some messages told us how much people had loved our wedding, some their favourite memory of the day, and others wished us happiness together for the future.

Mr Rigg reading one of our messages…

It was a truly moving experience, to sit together, a year on from our wedding as husband and wife, and to open those tiny glittering eggs to reveal these messages of love and encouragement. Some funny, some well-wishes, and one from my little sister Izzy who is 18 that almost made me cry.

To have these messages for the future is very special.  I’m sure we will have high times and low times in our future together, but it is comforting to know we have this box of memories, encouragement, and love from our nearest and dearest, that we can dip into and remind ourselves of our wedding.

All our messages from our opened Metta Eggs…

Special Offer for TNWC Readers

Receive a free ‘Taste of Metta Eggs’ (up to 7 messages/eggs) with every full Metta Eggs Experience purchased before 31st September 2012.  For full details contact Libby at Metta eggs on the details below, quoting Natural Weddings.

For full details on Metta Eggs visit their profile page on The Natural Wedding Company or their website http://mettaeggs.com.  If you have any questions contact Libby on 01273 806 206 or at info@mettaeggs.com.

Images: Izzy Burton Photography and The Natural Wedding Company