Tender and loving as weddings are, they can be far from gentle on the environment, in terms of the resources they require and the waste they often create. Fortunately, there are plenty of options available to eco-conscious brides and grooms, and many steps couples can take to keep their wedding day low impact and environmentally sound.
*Between all those wedding invitations, place cards, ceremony programs, etc., the average wedding leaves a huge paper trail. As an alternative, consider printing these kinds of items on tree-free paper (made from materials such as organic cotton, recycled denim, recycled coffee beans or hemp fiber) or post-consumer recycled paper. Two other strategies to consider are handwriting your invitations on handmade paper, or sending electronic messages whenever possible. Some couples even create their own wedding websites through services like greatgreenwedding.weddingwindow.com, while, as a means of offsetting paper use, a growing trend among environmentally minded brides and grooms is to give tree seedlings as wedding favors, to be planted by the wedding guests after the event. (More information about this practice can be found at www.plantamemory.com and www.evergreenmemories.ca.)
*Did you know that in the process of making an average pair of wedding bands, enough waste is produced to create a pile 6 feet wide, 6 feet high, and 10 feet long? And let’s not even get into the whole “blood diamond” phenomenon, or the toxic chemicals that are released through the practice of gold mining. For concerned couples, the solution to these problems is to buy rings made from recycled precious metals and stones. If that prospect fills your head with images of B-grade, junk sculpture-style jewelry, just browse the wide array of ring options on sites like www.leberjeweler.com and www.greenkarat.com – you’ll find these rings look anything but secondhand.
*Cut flowers might be beautiful, but they’re toxic to the environment, not to mention the workers who grow them. A couple of solutions are to grow your own flowers, use organic flowers, or buy in-season flowers, which will not only cost less, but also spare the environment the emissions that come from international shipping.
*With the list of available earth-friendly fabrics expanding all the time, the bride might want to consider wearing a wedding dress made of sustainable materials such as linen, organic cotton, soy, hemp, peace silk and bamboo. Another option is to wear a reused gown, which eradicates the need for new materials and also allows the bride to fulfill the age-old code of wearing “something old” or “something borrowed.” Or, better still, she can design her own dress made using two or three previously worn gowns. Finally, after the wedding, she can donate her dress to a cause like Brides Against Breast Cancer (503-491-8091 www.bridesagainstbreastcancer.org) or The I Do Foundation (www.idofoundation.org), the latter of which donates 20 percent of the sale price of each bride’s dress to her charity of choice.
*This Article appeared in Volume 9, Issue 01 of The Wave Magazine.
