Green Weddings

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Don’t panic! We are not expecting you to walk down the aisle in a field, wearing a dress of animal feed sacks, but your wedding day has the potential to be more eco-friendly than the average. So if you’re lucky enough to be planning your wedding this year, you can make a difference by simple ways such as carefully choosing your venue, considering transport options for your guests and opting for food and drink produced with care for the environment.

So what can you do?

There are a variety of different ways you can help alleviate the pressure your wedding day has on the environment, so even if you can’t do all of them, just choosing one will help:

Wedding and engagement rings – the mining of gold and gemstones uses a lot of energy and water, therefore your chose of ring can help. Vintage rings are a good choice as they avoid using new materials and you can find them antiques markets, jewellers, pawn shops, local auctions, estate sales and online auction sites. You could also buy a ring made from recycled materials, by melting down your old unwanted jewellery.

Wedding clothes – wedding outfits are only usually worn once, yet a lot of material and resources go into making them. How about buying dresses for yourself and the bridesmaids that you can wear again, or get them to wear their favourite dresses instead? Consider buying a second-hand dress and having it altered to fit you. There are plenty of places to find them, such as online auction or specialist sites, vintage and charity shops, or antique fashion fairs. If you want a new dress, consider using organic and Fairtrade fabrics and make sure you use a local dressmaker to reduce transport emissions. You could hire wedding outfits, however if you would like your own, how about selling or donating your outfits afterwards so that they can be used again?

Flowers and decorations – the majority of flowers used at weddings are either grown in energy-intensive greenhouses or flown in from more exotic climates. Therefore, use seasonal wild flowers and use stones or shells to anchor the flowers instead of floral foam, which isn’t reusable or recyclable. You could also use potted plants and give them away as gifts at the end, or reuse flowers from the ceremony or rehearsal dinner at the reception. Often there is the possibility of borrowing vases, lights and decorations from the reception venue, or you could buy them from charity shops but try to choose reusable or recyclable decorations.

Wedding invitations – try to email your invitations as it saves resources and energy. There a variety of websites that send out invitations for free and track the responses but you need to double-check that invitations have been received, in case they end up in recipients’ junk mail. If you decide to use postal invitations, try to use paper that has been recycled or is from sustainable forests. You could also get the guests to reply by email and put the event details on a website so guests don’t need to print out information.

Wedding gifts – There are several online gift lists that offer eco-friendly items, or try to choose a company with good environmental credentials. If you don’t need anything, how about having an “ethical” gift list that benefits others, such as safe drinking water or donating to a charity of your choice.

Food and drink – Try to look locally for food and drink that is in season and try to think about organic and Fairtrade options such as coffee or tea. Avoid using disposable plates and cutlery that you can’t recycle, and send guests home with remaining food in reusable containers.

Confetti – avoid non-biodegradable foil, or paper confetti that contains bleach and artificial colours. Try using petals from friends’ and families’ gardens or even birdseed.

Wedding travel – to reduce transport emissions, ask guests to car share or organise a coach to go between venues. If guests need to fly, try to encourage them to offset their flights, or offer to pay for it yourself. Include public transport details in your invitations and lead by example by arriving at the wedding in a horse-drawn carriage, tandem, rickshaw or by foot.

Venues for the ceremony and reception – Choosing a venue that reduces your guest’s travel can help to make your wedding greener. Try to choose a venue near to where most of your guests live, that is accessible by public transport and keep the ceremony and reception close together or in the same building. Even better, look at venues where you can hold your reception that can provide accommodation for all your guests as well. Try to use venues that have environmental policies, serve food from local, seasonal or sustainable sources and support environmental causes.

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