From my wedding diary: 6 months before the wedding....
My gorgeously green friend, Sarah got married a couple of months ago and sent me the write up of their sustainable wedding at Ethical Weddings. It reminded me that of course I wanted an ethical wedding. It's just it's really really easy to forget when you are planning the day. Especially when you have a groomzilla on your hands. One who wants everything perfectly matching.
Well, it's not over yet. 6 months to go. Plenty of time to get it right!
Invitations
This should have been a no brainer, right? Handmade from recycled paper. Better yet, an email! What happened is that we got on Vista Print, and not only got invitations, but matching envelopes, Save the Date cards and Thank You cards. All prettily matching, but definitely NOT GREEN, and they got shipped from the Netherlands. So, I sent a message to Vista Print to find out their sustainability policy. They basically don't have one, and don't recycle at all. Green Score: not even close
Outfits
My aim is to find a gorgeous vintage 1950s dress. Failing that, a second hand dress off Ebay, or from Oxfam Bridal store in Reading. I'm aiming for antique jewellery too. The next option is to rent one. I actually clicked on an ad recently that said "cheap wedding dresses" and was tempted by a full customised dress for USD$175, until I realised that they were made in china.... probably by orphans, whose supervisor had to kill a puppy every hour to keep them scared and working fast. Shoes, I don't know yet. Likely second hand fabulous ones from an upmarket second hand boutique. We haven't thought about bridesmaids yet. They will likely be bought from a high street shop. Mark and his groomsmen will likely rent their suits. Green Score: Pretty good except for the Bridesmaids dresses potentially.
Rings
I was insistent that my engagement ring be "recycled", and it is. It's absolutely beautiful, from the 1920s, and who knows how many people have owned it and loved it over the years. It was probably a "blood diamond", let's face it, but hopefully its negative karma has been worked off by now. It came from Gray's Antique Market in Bond Street. Wedding rings are a bit harder, because apparently it's not easy to find antique platinum bands, but we'll keep looking. Another option is Green Karat who makes recycled and ethical jewellery. The slight downside is that antique can be expensive, but the upside is that there is more history in antique, and even new recycled ones can be made from loved jewellery you already own. Green Score: Quite good actually
Food
We're having locally grown lamb and locally grown vegetables. We could make it better by having all vegetarian, especially since I'm actually a vegetarian now since we chose the menu, but I'm happy with the menu being local. We also don't need to use any plastic plates or cups. Green Score: pretty average
Venue
We chose a venue that's close enough for Londoners, and close enough for Mark's family from the North. It's an educational trust that runs workshops for children and youth offenders, teaching them about the Tudor period and how to grow herbs and things. Truth be told, we fell in love with the barn and orchard before we even heard about the Trust. We're not actually sure about their green policy. I don't even know if they recycle, or use eco products. Green Score: Not really trying
Flowers
Another fight with Groomzilla. We've settled on wild flowers in keeping with our summer garden party theme. We will go to the local nursery and get potted plants. Whatever they have in stock that was grown at the nursery. I'm hoping to find some cardboard planters that I can decorate. For my bouquet, I'm tempted to buy a bunch of flowers and put ribbon around it. Green Score: Good!
Alcohol
Our first thought was we'd go to France and pick up some cheap beer and wine. What we're trying to do now is source a local brewery who'll come and serve us their own from a keg. I wonder if I can find a British vineyard to do the same. We're serving everything in glasses provided by our caterer, so the only waste will be glass bottles. Must double check with the venue that they recycle them. Otherwise, one of our green friends will have to cart them back to London for us! I just have to make sure that we don't run out of time and just go to Tesco. Green Score: Not too bad, if we stick to our guns.
Honeymoon
The greenest option would be to honeymoon in the UK, but being from Australia, we decided to go home for a party for my relatives who couldn't make it over. I'm justifying that by the fact that it's a smaller footprint for us to fly there rather than the whole family coming here, but we're also going to Singapore and Bali, a round trip of approx 25,000 miles. We get brownie points for the fact that we're volunteering for a week at a children's orphanage, but that hardly helps the environment. I also want to find a good offsetting scheme, or donate to the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. Green score: Not great, not green.
Presents
We're asking people to contribute to the honeymoon, to the orphanage, and we might put together a small wedding list for people who want to buy us a physical present. We don't want to accumulate a lot of stuff, we have everything we need already, and we're not sure what country we may be living in a few years. Green score: Not too bad
Writing it all down makes me realise that we do need to think about this some more. It's not just going to happen by itself. Not that I'm competitive or anything, but it's quite likely that I won't have the greenest wedding of the century. That's fine, but there are definitely more things we could do easily do.
So, stay tuned!
© Denise Duffield-Thomas
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Posted by: Pyngeance | December 2011 at 08:17 PM
Hehahe thanks for this... I think your amazing day has come and gone by now, and I'm about to stumble around through your pages to learn more, but I'm newly engaged and just starting to plan.
Reading your realistic approach to cost and ethics was fun. Your humor and grace shines through, just as I'm sure it did at your wedding. :D
Thanks again. I needed this.
Posted by: Ashley Sue Allen | October 2009 at 03:07 PM
Oh it's a total challenge! When we got married last July, we realised how many aspects there are to think about. Read about some of our choices here:
http://doingthingsdifferently.blogspot.com/2008/08/45-we-are-circle.html
http://doingthingsdifferently.blogspot.com/2008/08/46-worth-risk.html
For us, it was a balance of keeping our carbon footprint as low as possible at the same time as maximising what I call our Contribution Footprint™ i.e. the way in which we made an impact and the extent to which our friends and family were able to feel that their skills and passions were valuable and made a difference.
At the end of the day, it is love that's right at the heart of a marriage and so it makes sense that it's the central focus of the day - both in planning and on the day itself. That's love of each other, love of friends and family, and love of our planet which makes it all possible.
Happy happy planning! And let me know if I can help at all :)
Corrina xxxx
Posted by: Corrina | February 2009 at 11:12 PM