Go Green at Your Wedding

Your wedding is one of the most important days of your life, so what could be better than celebrating the environment while celebrating your nuptials? Here are some ideas to get you started.

Green wedding tip: Bridesmaid Dresses
Let your bridesmaids wear their own (or at least choose their own) bridesmaids dresses. Not only will you make your bridesmaid happy because they can wear something they feel comfortable in, you also won’t be causing to the all of the waste that comes from making a dress that someone only wears once. Not to mention that you won’t be contributing to landfills when your bridesmaids toss all of that taffeta, sequins, and lace into the trash. A great compromise is to choose a color and a theme and let your bridesmaids pick from there.

Green wedding tip: Flowers
Use local, in-season flowers. The same principles for choosing fruits and vegetables at the supermarket should apply to our flower purchases. By using flowers that are from the area and currently in bloom, you will reduce the transportation, packaging, and preservatives that are used for plants that need to be shipped from around the world. Your wedding theme will most likely include the season and area anyway, so commit to it and go local!

Green wedding tip: Invitations and Save-the-Dates
With all the communication that goes on between a bride and her guests, this is a great place to go green (and save a little green!). Between invitations, save-the-date cards, and all those envelopes, weddings can use up a lot of paper. A great place to begin being green is to create a wedding web site. There are plenty of web sites that let you create your own page without needing to know the technology behind how to build a site. Once you have the web site, you can use email as your primary form of communication for reminders and information. If you still want to send paper invitations, many companies now offer recycled paper.

Green wedding tip: Party Favors
When is the last time you actually remembered what you got as a favor at a wedding? Typically the gifts are cute but useless trinkets that half the guests end up leaving on the table at the end of the night. Instead, consider making a donation to your favorite environmental charity on behalf of the guests at your wedding. Your friends and family will appreciate such a creative gift.

Green wedding tip: Gift Registry
These days, a lot of brides and grooms already have many of the household staples normally gifted at weddings. Whether or not that is your situation, consider asking for “green” gifts for your wedding. There are all sorts of great wedding gifts with a green twist (many of which can be found on this site). You’ll be making your life greener while introducing your guests to a whole world of environmental responsibility.

Go green at your wedding and treat your guests to an environmentally-friendly event that they’ll remember forever!