Alpkit Wedding Range Out Now!

Yes, you did read that correctly. The online outdoors company Alpkit, whose Fantom jackets, Airic sleeping mats and new Gourdon dry bags have gone down a treat with UK walkers, have recently announced a change of strategy. Forget climbing mountains, the future's in wedding gear ...

Jon and Jane Birch's wedding,
with the bride wearing an Alpkit down jacket

For those of you dashing to the phone to ask the Alpkit guys if they've seen a doctor recently, we should put your minds at rest. Alpkit haven't really lost the plot and started retailing suave suits or lacy white dresses or, erm, bouquets. Nor have they turned their back on the wonderful world of goose down, so fear not, that Fantom jacket you were planning to buy will still be available at the click of a button in a few weeks' time. The only difference is that you can now buy it in white, just in case tying the knot turns out to be a chilly business.

So how did that come about? Well, Jon Birch and Jane Tetlaw decided to get married at the IceHotel in Sweden. As it's deep inside the artic circle they figured that a few layers of silk around the shoulders wouldn't quite do the job. The trouble is, how do you stay warm and look festive? Hmmm, tricky.

Jane's answer was to ask Alpkit for a white down jacket to go with her wedding dress and they duly came up with the goods. A few tweaks to the Fantom jacket, a painful parting-of-the-ways with that ultimate outdoor colour 'Retro Red', and hey presto ...

The morals of the story (we think) are:

• the boys at Alpkit are an obliging, open-minded bunch who don't mind making gear for unusual purposes. Just give them a call if you're looking for, erm, a very warm party outfit or, well, something for a wedding.
• down jackets don't have to be red or black, although they normally are.
• romance isn't the sole property of Caribbean islands - it's OK to seek out some honeymoon snow.
• as an outdoors website, we aren't very good at thinking up morals about Arctic weddings.

However, we'd like to offer Jon and Jane Birch our congratulations, and we'll bear Alpkit's services in mind if we ever decide to get married anywhere cold:-)

More information on the full Alpkit range at their website.