Green Weddings Tips – 5 Ideas For the Eco-Chic Bride
November 17, 2009 by Wedding Ideas
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What could make your big day even more special, beautiful and memorable? Showing that you’re stylish, eco-friendly and hip with these five tips for a fabulous green wedding.
1. Create inspired arrangements of cacti and succulents instead of using cut flowers.
Does the world really need another bridal bouquet of roses and peonies? We think not! Especially since eighty percent of cut flowers are imported all the way from South America, where they’re grown with harmful pesticides. Cacti and succulent arrangements are a unique, stylish, and eco-friendly alternative. If you’re DIY-inclined, you can create your own succulent centerpieces weeks before the wedding – they require minimal care and watering. And afterwards, you can replant them in your garden, where they’ll take root and grow alongside the marriage. Awwwww!
2. Serve delicious local, organic, sustainable foods.
Organic/sustainable food isn’t just good for the Earth – it actually tastes better too! Treat your guests to real foods that are healthy, pesticide-free and locally grown. Search online for a caterer who offers organic menu options. If you don’t find one in your area, get creative: We know one Massachusetts bride who convinced four different vendors from her local farmer’s market to cater her wedding with fresh salads and veggie dishes, locally raised roasted chicken, farm-fresh fruits and home-baked pies! Even if you don’t go totally organic, limit the number of meat items on your menu, and choose sustainably farmed, low-mercury fish and seafood.
3. Have a super-sweet hometown wedding.
The number one cause of gargantuan carbon footprints for weddings? Travel! Whether your guests arrive by car or by plane, the miles they rack up en route to your big day can add up quickly. A typical destination wedding causes 50 tons of carbon dioxide (eek!) to be emitted into the atmosphere. Choosing an event location near where most of your guests live will help cut down on their travel. And you can reduce your impact even further by buying carbon offsets to create a zero carbon wedding. Who says you need an exotic locale to make your dream day special? Create a stylish hometown wedding that incorporates unique elements from you or your fiancee’s childhood.
4. Choose a vintage engagement ring and post-consumer gold wedding bands.
There is already enough gold in the world to satisfy the demands of the jewelry industry for the next 50 years. Meanwhile, both gold and diamond mining (even of “conflict-free” diamonds) continue to poison the environment and global water supply with waste and toxins like cyanide and mercury. You can be part of the “elegant solution” by choosing a vintage engagement ring. Vintage and used engagement rings are often priced more reasonably than the new rings sold in retail stores, and come in a dazzling array of styles. And when it comes time to choose wedding bands, look for rings made from post-consumer white, yellow and rose gold.
5. Buy a gently used wedding dress, recycled bridesmaids dresses, or preowned bridal shoes.
The secondary market for wedding items is booming! Smart brides who don’t want to sacrifice style and luxury are finding gently used wedding dresses online for half their retail price. And wedding recycling doesn’t just save you money – it also reduces your wedding’s environmental impact. By buying gently used wedding items, you’ll avoid the consumption of natural resources and carbon emissions associated with the manufacture and transport of new items. And you can even sell your used wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses and accessories again after the wedding!
About the Author Tracy Dinunzio
To buy or sell a gently used wedding dress, gently used bridesmaids dresses, vintage engagement ring or used wedding ring for free – absolutely no commissions or fees – visit http://www.RecycledBride.com
Visit Green Weddings for ideas on fabulous eco-friendly dinnerware.
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Go Green at Your Wedding
February 6, 2009 by Wedding Ideas
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by Kathleen McCabe
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!
Kathleen McCabe is the editor of http://www.GreenSmooch.com – a site filled with tips and articles to help you go green. Contact kathleen.mccabe@greensmooch.com
