This is not about having a wedding colour combination that would make an Irish leprechaun feel right at home. It is about being Eco-Friendly and giving back as you celebrate on your special day. So as you bask in that just married glow, your conscience will be feeling all warm and fuzzy.
If you look at a wedding from a cynical (or a confirmed bachelor & environmental extremist’s) perspective, there is a great deal of unnecessary expenditure on wasteful things that will just end up being thrown away. Not to make you feel too guilty, but getting married doesn’t just have an impact on the Bride and Grooms future together, it also has an impact on the environment. Studies have shown that a typical wedding can produce 180kg of rubbish and 28kg of CO2.
How can your wedding leave a green footprint?
Pick a green wedding venue
All the pomp and ceremony of the greening bandwagon has long since faded and now it just makes sense for a wedding venue to be green. But despite all the best greening practices of a wedding venue, it helps if the Bride/Wedding Planner is on board with wanting to be as Eco-Friendly as possible.
Go paper free
Admittedly it is lovely to be presented with a classy looking invitation printed on expensive paper, but there are alternatives to using paper from non-sustainable resources.
If the invitation has to be printed then use recycled paper and make it known that you are planning a green wedding. Although you may need to spell it out a bit, about what a green wedding means, to avoid being surrounded by leprechauns on the day.
Cut down on the flowers
To produce a bunch of perfect cut flowers requires a great deal of resources, energy, pesticides, etc. Go for something different – non-flower bouquets or use potted plants that will be planted after the ceremony. If it has to be cut flowers then source them from an organic and sustainable florist.
Wedding cuisine
Some wedding menus can look and taste delicious but be extremely wasteful. Cut down on foods that use excessive packaging or consist of decorative but disposable items. Organic is great and if the catering is to be provided by a third party, then use a supplier that is local to the venue to avoid excessive transportation emissions.
Donate to a good cause
Are you are one of those couples who already have enough and don’t really want to have to find extra drawer space for more cutlery, crockery, linen and other traditional wedding gift items? Then ask the guests to put together a gift hamper, donate blankets, etc. for the needy.
