Are you a “green warrior”, an environmentalist or just someone ready to give the total effort to making your wedding as Eco-active as possible, consider the tips below:
The Cake: A green wedding begins at home. Rather than contracting professionals to bake your cake consider creating it yourself in your own home. Baking your own wedding cake in your home stove expends less energy than the commercial ovens used in professional bakeries, and you can control the ingredients.
You can use free-range eggs, whole flour, organic milk and sugar, and other all-natural ingredients, creating a cake free of additives and preservatives. Transporting the cake to the reception yourself also prevents the bakery’s delivery truck from consuming fossil fuels and releasing exhaust fumes into the atmosphere. Of course, you need to ask a friend or relative to help you!
Favors:Give guests a favor that keeps the wedding spirit going, giving unique wedding favors such as seed packets allows them to create a growing memory of your special event. Seed packets are quickly becoming one of the more trendy wedding favors on the market, exactly because of their lovely finished product!
Flowers: There is an online company called Organic Bouquet, which sells certified organic roses and exotic flowers, all grown without chemical pesticides and insecticides. Organic roses are naturally fragrant and, because they are free of chemical pesticides, they’re also edible.
You can safely use them to decorate cakes or cupcakes, sprinkle on salads, or to make rose-scented sugar (just toss a few petals into a bowl of sugar). Or save your organic roses and make potpourri; fill cellophane bags with the mixture and send them to guests with your thank-you notes.
The Gown: My opinion on wedding gowns is to choose the dress you love! The one you envision passing down to your children. This is the greenest thing any bride can do: Invest in an exquisite piece to be shared with future generations.
Invitations: Look for seeded paper that germinates when planted, tree-free paper alternatives made from hemp or bamboo. Or choose 100% post-consumer recycled stock produced from discarded newspapers, office paper and magazines. Also, ask your printer to use a soy-based ink; it’s a greener choice made from renewable soy beans, and the end result can be brighter, clearer printing.
Lighting: Let there be natural light conserve resources by getting married outdoors or in an area with plentiful natural light. Getting married in the temperate months of spring, when the days grow longer, allows for maximum lighting time available.
If you’re getting married during warmer months, build a tent to offer shelter to your more heat-sensitive guests, decorating its sides and poles with fresh wildflowers. If your wedding goes after dark consider lighting up the night with bee wax or soy bean candles, solar lanterns they charge in the sun all day long and cast a soft glow at night.
Hang them in the trees, or use them to line the lawn to create pathways. Since they need no special wiring, you can put the lanterns wherever your heart desires.
Place Cards: Pluck leaves from trees and hand write with a permanent-ink pen the guest’s name on each leaf; add an extra-skinny ribbon at the stem and tie the leaf around the napkin. Stamp large river rocks with guests’ names using an alphabet stamp set available at any craft store; rest a rock at each place setting and ask guests to return the rocks to a river, or add them to a garden or planter in their own homes after the reception.
Use what you have: Lemons from a backyard tree could be marked with guests’ names using a sharpie. Pieces of broken terracotta pots or ceramic tiles make lovely place cards as well.
Recycling: Ask caterers to recycle cans, bottles and aluminum foil and insist on a no-Styrofoam policy.
Wine: Organic wines, which are made from grapes grown without chemical pesticides, have improved by leaps and bounds over the years. Bonterra which translates into “good earth” is a high-quality, reasonably priced line available nationwide.
An all-organic and biodynamic wine retailer in New York City: Appellation Wine and Spirits, offers a mind-blowing variety from both large and small winemakers around the world.
Food: Work with caterers and bakers who use organic and locally grown ingredients. If you were to use disposable dishware consider using biodegradable flatware and other earth-friendly items.
If you are a bride to be and planning a green wedding? I would like to hear the journey of your green wedding!