Green Marriage Ceremonies
10 Inexpensive Ways to Make Your Wedding Eco-Friendly
These eco-friendly wedding options are inexpensive, fun, and easy on the conscience - because your big day doesn't have to damage the planet.
From live wedding favors to horse and buggy transportation, these ten inexpensive ways to make your wedding eco-friendly will put a green twist on your ceremony. You may be stressed during wedding planning – but these tips will help the planet breathe easier.
10 Inexpensive Ways to Make Your Wedding Eco-Friendly
- Use biodegradable seed paper for wedding invitations. Instead of a paper wedding invitations, use seed-embedded cards. When planted in soil, they grow wildflowers. More tree-free alternatives for wedding invitations include include hemp, bamboo, banana stalk and sugarcane paper
- Buy a pre-loved or vintage wedding dress. If your mother’s, sister’s, or best friend’s wedding dress isn’t right for you, consider buying a “pre-loved” wedding gown. Many bridal stores specialize in restoring, recycling and selling wedding gowns. This is an inexpensive way to make your wedding eco-friendly. Plus, vintage wedding dresses not only help make your wedding green – they’ve got soul.
- Donate your wedding gown to a good cause. The Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation donates all proceeds from used wedding gowns to making wishes come true for cancer patients. Make your wedding eco-friendly and don’t let your wedding dress languish in the closet or attic for decades, recycle it for a good cause (and good karma!).
- Rent a hybrid, compact, or old-fashioned vehicle. Instead of a stretch limo or Hummer, make your wedding eco-friendly by reducing your carbon emissions. A green marriage ceremony can end on the perfect note if you hire a horse and buggy. Not only is it eco-friendly, it lends a whimsical touch of nostalgia. If you plan early and shop around enough, this could be an inexpensive way to make your wedding eco-friendly.
- Set up an organic gift registry. Look for stores that sell organic cotton, recycled glassware, bamboo home accessories, and so on. Your gift registry can (and should) reflect your green wedding, lifestyle, and values. Or, ask your guests to donate to eco-friendly organizations or environmental groups instead of buying you gifts.
- Use local, seasonal flowers. Your local florist can tell you which bouquets are local and seasonal – which means they don’t have to travel long distances or damage the planet. This is an inexpensive way to make your wedding eco-friendly because local and seasonal are often cheaper.
- Give live wedding favors. Instead of knick knacks, give your guests live wedding favors such as seed packets, bulbs, or tree seedlings. Anything that’s sustainable and renewable is a great way to enhance your green marriage ceremony. Put your eco-friendly wedding favors in palm leaf wedding favor boxes to complete the effect.
- 8. Serve local, organic beer and wine. If your province or state doesn’t make local wine, don’t go overseas. For an inexpensive way to make your wedding eco-friendly, buy alcohol that hasn’t traveled for hundreds of thousands of miles. Consider making your own organic beer or wine – and give a bottle to your guests as wedding favors.
- 9. Research eco-friendly wedding websites. GreatGreenWeddings.com and GreenEleganceWeddings.com are fairly comprehensive eco-friendly wedding websites. Don’t forget about green living or eco-friendly lifestyle websites, which usually have an article or two about green weddings.
- 10. Plan a green honeymoon. Eco-friendly honeymoons include exotic eco-tours, wilderness retreats, eco-spas, and local eco-escapes. In fact, green honeymoons may be more romantic and bonding than traveling to Hawaii or St Maarten. They may or may not be an expensive way to make your wedding eco-friendly – it depends on how the resort and distance from your house.
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The copyright of the article Green Marriage Ceremonies in Wedding Planning is owned by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen. Permission to republish Green Marriage Ceremonies must be granted by the author in writing.
