Tips for Planning Your Eco Friendly Wedding
Disappearing are the days of wasteful and over the top wedding traditions. As millennials, we care deeply about having weddings our way without causing more harm than necessary to the planet and our wallets. In this article, I’ll dive deep into many areas in which you can get that much closer to hosting the eco friendly wedding of your dreams.
Rent or Thrift Your Dress
Unfortunately, many brides wear their dress once and then preserve them in a box in which they never gaze upon again. Instead of buying brand new you can rent, buy used or even thrift your dress. There’s always wedding dresses to be found in thrift stores. How about your mom’s or grandmother’s wedding dress? You can hire a talented seamstress to transform and custom fit it for you. Not only is this zero waste but you’re supporting a local small business. Bonus!
Ditch Favours
I’ll never understand why wedding favours ever became a thing. You’re already giving your guests a great time and awesome food. Favours tend to be dinky things that many guests end up leaving behind anyways. As a wedding photographer, I see this happening all the time. Instead of creating waste consider donating the money you would have spent to your favourite charity. Create a compostable sign to let guests know if you like!
Choose an Eco-Friendly Wedding Venue
You’ll have to do your research to find wedding venues that have eco-conscious policies around waste and energy use. If you want to be very green you can hold your wedding in a national park, conservation centre, small farm or botanical garden. This enables you to directly support those that have conservation and environmental missions. When looking for venues consider their environmental infrastructure, policies and certifications. Ask them lots of questions!
Extra Venue Tips: You’ll also want to choose a space that is already looking amazing so you won’t need lots of decor. On top of that, choose a location where you can host both your ceremony and reception so you can reduce the amount of travel and therefore carbon footprint.
Serve Seasonal Vegan Meals
Die-hard meatatarians may think it’s sacrilegious to go one meal without meat but it’s so tasty!! I bet guests wouldn’t even notice the absence if you hire an amazing vegan caterer. A talented caterer will make even the most committed meat eater’s mouth water with their creative dishes. Consuming meat has a very negative impact on the planet so skipping it on your wedding menu is a big deal. Make sure you also chat with your caterer about using local farms and seasonal produce.
Pro Tip: Create a leftover plan with your vendor so that you’re prepared if there are any. You can take them home, give them to vendors or guests!
Rent or Borrow Decor
Buying decor specifically for your wedding is quite wasteful as there’s no life for it after your day. Instead, opt to hire a wedding decor rental company to supply you with all your needs. You can even rent all the dinnerware you need so there’s zero waste there! Keep the table decor simple with potted plants, fallen branches and candles to create a beautiful atmosphere. If you think you need more decor source items from around your house or those of family and friends. Don’t forget you can also borrow. 🙂
Zero Waste Invitations
If you’re committed to having a zero-waste wedding the best way to invite your guests would be to do so electronically. Send them a beautiful online invitation using an app like Greenvelope. If you’re really attached to the idea of sending tangible invitations to your guest make sure you use recycled paper, keep it to one piece and allow guests to rsvp on your wedding website. Since we’re on the topic of paper goods also ditch menu cards. While they look beautiful they are wasteful and are glanced at for mere seconds. If you feel it still necessary to inform your guests about their meals choose a compostable sign that they can check out.
Florals
Flowers also have a big impact on the planet. If you absolutely most have cut flowers at your wedding make sure you work with a florist that will use in-season flowers that are both native and grown in your area. To greatly reduce the number of flowers at your wedding you can leave out boutonnieres and bridal party bouquets. Boutonnieres become squished after many hugs and bridesmaid’s bouquets are abandoned after the ceremony and photos. You can also skip using cut flowers for your table centrepieces. You can do this by using locally sourced mosses, lichens, branches, pinecones and potted plants. Make sure you don’t use floral foam in the creation of your pieces as it’s non-biodegradable. Because you’ll be using foliage that lasts much longer you can also pair up with another couple getting married the same weekend as you so that they can be reused.
Low Waste Bar
If you’re holding your wedding at a venue that has a built-in bar that’s fantastic. Ensure that the beverages you’ll be serving such as pop, beer and water are exclusively on tap. Also, make sure that no disposable cups or straws will be used. Of course, if you’re out in a national park things will be quite different in this area. However, you can still order kegs so that you can reduce the number of cans. A lot of the time wedding guests can be wasteful with an open bar. Instead of finishing their current drink, they leave it sitting around somewhere and grab a new one. To avoid this waste you can attach a value to it by having a dollar bar instead.
Wedding Gifts
As adults who are getting married later in life we’ve most likely purchased all we need for our homes. So creating a wedding registry can be daunting and over the top. Maybe you’re like me and cherish experiences over material items. Therefore, I would suggest asking your wedding guests to help fund the amazing honeymoon of your dreams. Maybe there’s even a way you can set up online money gifts so that you won’t be throwing out so many paper cards 5 seconds after opening them.
Eco Friendly Wedding Rings
Your wedding bands are another thing to keep in mind when trying to be environmentally friendly on your wedding day. Unfortunately, diamonds are mined from the earth and sometimes even come from areas ravaged by conflict. If you want a diamond lookalike Moissanite is an amazing opinion. Not only is it next in line for durability after diamonds they have an amazing sparkle for a fraction of the price and are made in labs. You also want to consider rings that are made from recycled gold and other materials.
Ceremony Celebrations
Having guests throw something at the newlyweds as they walk down the aisle is so fun and it makes for amazing photos. However, you don’t want to throw anything that would be wasteful or create litter. So if you’re thinking about having your guests throw something as you exit your ceremony consider hole punched leaves, compostable + recycled paper or birdseed.
Cruelty Free Make Up
This is a given for a lot of makeup lovers already but it’s important to ensure that your make up artist will be using vegan and cruelty-free products.
Well, that’s all I’m going to touch on today! I’m sure that I’m missing lots of things so I’ll update as new tips come to mind. If you feel I should include something else let me know. Also, keep awareness close as you go about planning your sustainable wedding and question whether there’s a better way to go about certain things. Research is best!
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