Taylorcocks Gives Colleague a Camel for Her Big Day!

Taylorcocks accountant Helen Crowley and her husband-to-be Elliot Goble have received an extraordinary gift from Helen’s employers after the couple created a highly unusual wedding list.

Instead of choosing toasters, towels, china and cutlery, they’ve opted to create a charity wedding list that offers donkeys, clean water, farming tools and goats.

The idea appealed to her colleagues at Taylorcocks in Portsmouth so much that they have clubbed together to buy the happy couple a camel.

The couple from Waterlooville are getting married on 14th March and they’ve opened a wedding list account on the Oxfam Unwrapped website. It gives some of their hundred or so guests the chance to choose and pay for items that will help disadvantaged communities in less developed countries.

Helen, who has worked for Taylorcocks since January 2008, says the idea of a traditional wedding list just didn’t appeal to them:

“We’ve lived together for three years and we have everything we need, so we decided that if our guests felt they’d like to give us a gift, we could ask them to donate to charity instead. Guests can use the Unwrapped website to choose specific items from the list we’ve put together with Oxfam as this leaves no uncertainty about what their money is being used for.”

The couple selected items that are appropriate to their own lives. Helen, an account manager with one of the region’s top business advisers and chartered accountants, particularly liked the idea of one of her guests donating money to train a business woman in a less developed country.

Elliot, who teaches mechanics to teenagers at Paragon College in Fareham, wanted to include school equipment like desks and chairs.

Helen says that one of their main priorities was to suggest gifts with a range of values. Guests can opt for something like a bar of soap, a bucket or, if the guests want to splash out, then, like Taylorcocks, they could choose a camel for £95.00.

So what has been the most popular gift?
“I wanted to put animals on the list – and I’m glad I did. So far our guests have already bought four goats!”
The wedding list is unconventional – and so is the honeymoon: Helen and Elliot are leaving the wedding and their guests in a vintage 1963 VW Camper Van which they’ll use to tour Britain.

To find out more about Taylorcocks, visit the website at www.theaccountants.co.uk
To find out more about Oxfam Unwrapped, go to www.oxfam.org.uk