Jun
02
Easy Tips To Go Green At Your Wedding
ByWhen You Say “I Do” Will You GO GREEN?
June has arrived and environmentally conscious brides/grooms are choosing to go green. If you’re planning your eco-friendly wedding, here are some easy ways you can go green when you walk down the aisle:
- Skip the flowers and have your wedding outdoors with natural scenery. If flowers are a must-have, pick a florist who uses local organic sources.
- Rent real glasses, dishes, linens and cloth napkins to avoid congesting landfills with disposables.
- Select a central location and organize your wedding ceremony and reception in the same place to avoid excess carbon emissions from unnecessary travel.
- Let your wedding party choose their own attire. There is a much better chance of them wearing it again if you put the decision in their hands. Encourage them to use sustainable fabrics or visit a vintage retailer.
- Consider a vintage dress or tuxedo from a resale clothing store or use natural materials like organic silk or hemp.
- Use FSC certified 100% post consumer waste paper for your wedding invitations, postcards, programs and envelopes, or save paper and money by omitting the envelope and supplying an RSVP postcard instead.
- Use potted plants as centerpieces at your reception that can be given to guests or planted in a garden.
- Sign up for a green gift registry with an eco-conscious retailer.
- Recycle and compost materials at your reception. Reduce waste and prearrange to deliver leftovers to a local shelter.
- Minimize the use of lighting wherever possible, consider LED lights for decoration and choose all natural soy or beeswax candles which don’t produce toxins or carcinogens when burning and they are biodegradable.
- Use a caterer who can provide a menu selection based on time of year with locally sourced vegetables, meats and fruits in season. This avoids superfluous carbon emissions from long distance transportation of more exotic selections not available locally.
- Choose local organic wines and beer for your bar.
Following any of these tips will help you go green at your wedding. And when the honeymoon is over, keep the go green passion alive with eco-friendly and sustainable choices in your home.
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7 Comments
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
These are great tips! There are so many ways to be eco-friendly for your wedding and save money too. For more tips and tricks on how to be green, readers should take a look at http://www.thegreenbrideguide.com - you can save up to 40% by making simple substitutions for your big day.
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Hey,
I am trying real hard to go green, and by the looks of things many other people are too which is great. I think if we all pulled together and each changed a little bit about our lifestyles then we could make a difference. I was told about eCards by a friend, we were chatting about ways in which we could help the environment. We both recycle everything, and make sure that we turn our electrics off at the mains, we also try and walk to places instead of driving. So trying to become more eco friendly with our greetings cards seemed like a good idea. We spent ages looking on the internet and came across a really cool environmentally friendly eCard site that I really like. I like this site because there is so much choice, and I found an eCard for every friend that I know will make them smile. Changing my habits, even if it is a small change, like opting for an eCard over snail mail, or recycling, I think if we all contributed we could all make a difference.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:52 am
It is a shame that such a special day is often filled with waste. From bridesmaid dresses that are so expensive and then never worn again to flowers flown in from far-away places. I asked my bridesmaids to simply wear something dark blue. They looked great and didn’t have to worry about a useless dress taking up space in the closet and emptying out their wallets. And if they must match, look for sustainable fabrics - I wish there were recycled PET dresses, that would be very green.
Oh, and on the flowers, did you know that Columbia and Ecuador accounted for roughly 90% of all roses sold in the US last year? That’s one heck of a trip for a rose.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
The tip on invitations was excellent as well as the gift registry. Perfect for those of us who don’t want to turn our big day into a consumerist nightmare. If you aren’t interested in renting/buying a vintage tux/dress, you can also consider getting clothes that use airdye technology for you and bridesmaids. Check them out at (http://www.airdye.com/) for a list of manufacturers who use their technology which saves from my calculation (they have a water saver calculator on their website) anywhere from 600-1000 gallons of water if the grooms and bridesmaids outfits were purchased with airdye technology.
Good luck and congratulations on your special day!
David G.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
My husband and I had a true eco-friendly wedding: we had a video invite with an evite; it was vegan except for one cheese platter and one other dish with cow’s milk - everything came from a local, organic farmer; all the food and drink was purchased locally; it was outdoors (I held some flowers we picked up at the farmer’s market that day) during the day and at night we sat around a small bonfire playing music w/out additional light sources; I wore a dress that can be reused and my husband wore his nice dress pants with a shirt he has reused; our gift registry was set up to help pay for our honeymoon to Costa Rica, because we have vastly minimized our material items thus didn’t want any consumer products; we used real plates and silverware except for the cake (vegan from a local bakery and delicious!) in which we used biodegradable plates, forks and napkins; we used no plastic bottles; composted food scraps; our rings came from recycled gold and the ruby I have in place of a diamond is from a lab (same molecular structure as a ruby that is pulled from tons of earth and by slave laborers except there was zero earthly damage and no human was hurt). The one thing I wish he had done was pay for the carbon footprint for the guests who flew in.
It was a wonderful, loving, abundant experience and being eco-friendly helped make it so. What many people do not realize is that the meat they serve at their eco-friendly weddings in some ways negates their other efforts. The off-gassing created by and water needed to raise livestock does incredible damage to our earth. Having a veg wedding was interesting and gave our guests a new experience that they still speak of – in a positive way!
October 30th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Sounds like you had a fabulous and 100% eco-friendly wedding Kenda. Congratulations!!
November 11th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Thanks Tracy!