Green, Ethical and Eco-friendly Weddings

Too often, “eco-friendly” is equated with “expensive” - higher prices on “green” household products, organic food isn’t cheap, and so on. With unpredictable economic times ahead, couples are looking for ways to cut down on wedding costs and wedding debt without appearing cheap.

One of the core concepts behind the eco-friendly wedding is cutting out the extra stuff - cut back ruthlessly and find inexpensive natural alternatives for otherwise expensive “stuff” that would otherwise find its way into landfills once the ceremony is over.

So, 8 ideas for a frugal eco-friendly wedding:

1. Have fewer guests.
Why its frugal: A smaller wedding is cheaper to run, up to 2/3 cheaper! Less food, smaller hall, fewer flowers… small is good.
Why its green: Less stuff. Less waste (a lot of food gets thrown out after a wedding - consider donating it to a homeless shelter). Less travel (less carbon and pollution created). Just less, which is usually good for the environment.

2. Wear a vintage or second-hand dress.
Why its frugal: You can find designer dresses for more than half of what a new dress costs, even with alterations
Why its green: Wedding dresses are worn once. Since it takes a lot of effort and energy to make a wedding dress, keeping it in circulation means the original environmental and economic footprint of the dress is lessened.
Encore Bridal
PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com
SellYourWeddingDress.com

3. Use electronic invitations, RSVPs, announcements, etc.
Why its frugal: Many web sites will handle all electronic invitations for free or for a very small fee. No postage either.
Why its green: Less paper and ink. Paper production is very rough on the environment and electronic communication - especially if it is not printed out - is a better choice.
Notes: You will probably still need some paper invitations for those who are not online - some grandparents, etc.
Evite.com
Pingg.com

4. Use flowers grown in your garden (or a family member or a friend’s garden)
Why its frugal: Seeds and bulbs are much, much cheaper than cut flowers.
Why its green: Commercially-grown flowers have enormous environmental impact, from the massive amounts of pesticides used to grow and preserve the flowers, to the transportation costs and impact - most commercial flowers are grown in South America or Africa.
Notes: This one takes quite a bit of planning. If you are considering this, talk to several people including the local nursery about the right flowers for the area and time of year.

5. Hire musicians from the local college or music conservatory
Why its frugal: Music students work very hard and are skilled, and they will work for cheap. A quartet can work for the price of a soloist.
Why its green: Classical musicians generally do not need electricity for amplification, or choose a musician who will play “unplugged”.
Notes: There is a lot of talent at local music schools. My wife is an accompanist musician at the Mount Royal Conservatory here in Calgary; one of the students she play for and two of her siblings played at our wedding as a trio and they were wonderful! But remember the extra cello strings…

6. Honeymoon locally
Why its frugal: Less travel = less cost
Why its green: Less travel = less environmental impact

7. Keep the favors simple - five sugar-coated almonds is very traditional
Why its frugal: Enough sugar-coated almonds for 75 people should cost about $30-$40 (depending on where you get them, of course)
Why its green: Food is always a good choice for favours - there’s less chance of waste (kids tend to eat all the leftover favours). Knickknacks tend to accumulate (and accumulate in landfills) and aren’t appreciated by everyone. Some bakeries and cookie decorators will do combined placecards and favour cookies. There are a lot of other options you could consider, like donations.

8. Keep the reception simple
Why its frugal: Large banquets are very expensive - anywhere from $50 to $200 per guest. Plus, with a banquet, its harder to mingle with the guests. Consider a simple cocktail-and-hors d’oeuvres reception, a sandwich buffet or even a pot luck.
Why its green: Less waste.
Notes: My wife and I did a sit-down afternoon dinner buffet (which I wouldn’t do again), but skipped the dance. We rented two adjoining hotel suites (an advantage of being married in the off-season) and had a big gathering of all the friends and family. We felt like we visited with everyone.

Keep in mind that the wedding isn’t about the size of the party, it’s about the first moments of the rest of your life together. Planning a wedding is incredibly stressful, and relationships have broken up over the wedding planning. Don’t let anyone, including the wedding magazines and media, tell you what your wedding should be like. Make the day uniquely yours by adding in the special touches that make it personal - growing your own flowers is far more memorable than writing a cheque to a florist. Simple weddings reduce stress, reduce costs and reduce impact. And enjoy the day - it goes fast!

Try as you might, the perfect eco-friendly wedding is pretty hard to do. Having a carbon neutral wedding is quite easy.

Weddings, especially destination weddings or weddings with many out-of-town guests, can generate several tons of carbon; some estimates put the average wedding at 50 tons of carbon (other estimates put it at a significantly lower 15 tons, but it’s still a lot of carbon), considering the average North American household generates between 12 to 20 tons per year. That’s a lot of carbon for a 1 day event.

Calculate your wedding carbon footprint with CarbonFund.org’s Wedding Carbon Footprint Calculator.

It’s really tough to do the perfect zero-footprint wedding, and to be honest, you’d be making a lot of sacrifices that you may not be willing to make. It’s still your wedding, and it’s a (hopefully) once in a lifetime event.What can you do? Make your wedding as green as possible, and buy carbon offsets to take care of the rest.

What are carbon offsets?

Basically, when you buy a carbon offset, you are funding projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These projects include things like reforestation, building wind power generation farms, funding geothermal power projects, increasing the energy efficiency of transportation, and so on.

However, not all carbon offset credits are created equal. The best carbon credits are the Gold Standard credits:

“The Gold Standard is widely considered to be the highest standard in the world for carbon offsets. It ensures that key environmental criteria have been met by offset projects that carry its label. Significantly, only offsets from energy efficiency and renewable energy projects qualify for the Gold Standard, as these projects encourage a shift away from fossil fuel use and carry inherently low environmental risks. Tree planting projects are explicitly excluded by The Gold Standard.” ~ The David Suzuki Foundation

Even though the gold standard is, well, the gold standard, there are lots of other good carbon offset credits available. Look for an offsetter that’s certified or monitored buy a third-party organization like the Chicago Climate Exchange, the Environmental Resources Trust or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Clean Development Mechanism.

For a long technical paper comparing carbon offsets, click here (pdf), or check out this list of carbon offset credit providers.

Offsetting your wedding

For about $10/ton, you can offset your wedding and support green initiatives around the world. Several organizations have wedding carbon calculators, and if you offset your wedding, they will send you a certificate that you can add to your wedding memorabilia album.

Check out the following organizations for wedding carbon offset credits:

CarbonFund.org ZeroCarbonâ„¢ Weddings
Terrapass.com Wedding Terrapass

REDUCE, reuse, recycle (and my fourth ‘R’ - repair, but that’s a topic for another day). Weddings can get excessive (no, really?), and even if the choices are eco-friendly, the question of consumption still arises. There’s one key question you need to ask yourself: do I really need that? Remember, NEED is different from WANT.

Ariel at the excellent Offbeat Bride blog:

“…I definitely get concerned when I see wedding trend articles that lay yet another financial concern on engaged couples, yet another way in which brides can whip themselves into a frenzy. “I must have tea candles on every table — and they must be SOY CANDLES!â€� How about just skipping the candles? As my friend Esther pointed out, it’s a little frustrating that the article seems to ignore the “reduce, reuse, recycleâ€� aspect of environmentalism, focusing on green products couples can buy instead of suggesting that couples take the truly radical step of just buying less. “

Buy less, consume less - reduce. A radical idea…

Another reason to consider reducing the wedding “stuff” - there’s no doubt that making eco-friendly choices is more expensive than sticking with mainstream, mass produced stuff. By cutting stuff, you free up the budget for organic meals, flowers, etc.

This list is highly individual, and every bride will make different choices as to need or want, but here are some things to think about. Do you need:

• floral centerpieces for the tables?
• candles?
• individual place cards?
• a newspaper announcement?
• a ring pillow?
• toasting goblets?
• a ‘going-away’ outfit?

Run through your checklist. What are the things you can cut out?

John Reeve at Digital Web Magazine published an excellent article yesterday: How to Build a Green Business. The article covers many things you can do to build an eco-friendly business, and clearly defines some buzzwords like “sustainability”.

5 take-away points from the article

1. Recycle everything you can, including old electronic equipment and inkjet cartridges.
2. Reduce your consumption of everything, including power (turn things off when not in use) and paper (don’t print emails).
3. Use green products: everything from post-consumer waste recycled paper to green cleaning products.
4. Alternative commuting, including taking the bus, biking, working from home, carpooling and driving energy-efficient vehicles.
5. Revamp your product line by eliminating the inefficient and harmful.

Check out the article for more great ideas on running an environmentally-friendly and ethical business. Share your ideas in the comments on how you you run an ethical and environmentally-friendly wedding business.

“Many will embrace willful waste as a sign of confidence or luxury.”

Seth Godin (my favourite marketing guru) riffs on waste. He talks about a hotel room that was fully lit (with incandescent bulbs - gasp!), overly warm and so on. He talks about a watch that seemed to be more extras than watch. The theme of his post was excessiveness.

Many (dare I say most?) brides want a luxurious wedding, and weddings are often a venue for displays of wealth and excessiveness. It’s still possible to have a wedding that’s chic and glamorous but easy on the environment.

Most of the choices come from not sacrificing the glamour, but knowing where the different elements come from. You can have the big diamond, but choose an ethically sourced diamond. Have a fabulous dress, but choose organic fabrics. Have a sumptuous meal, but go organic and local. Make ethical choices for your once-in-a-lifetime blowout.

Check out the 95 Ideas To Make Your Wedding More Environmentally-Friendly.

Where do you see waste in your day-to-day life?

The candlelit ceremony is one of the most beautiful, romantic wedding scenes I can imagine. Are candles eco-friendly? That depends on these three things:

1. Materials used to make the candles. Use beeswax or soy candles, not paraffin candles. Paraffin candles are oil-based; beeswax and soy candles (and candles made from other natural oils) are made from renewable sources.
2. Transportation of the candles from the factory. Choose locally-made candles and avoid the carbon impact from transporting the candles across the country or from overseas.
3. Reusing old candles. Ask for old candles from churches. Some churches use new candles for every service, and end up with lots of candles that get thrown out. These candles can have many hours left in them, and reusing them keeps them out of the landfills.

It’s hard to beat the candlelit ceremony for sheer romantic impact, and you can minimize the environmental impact by following the three tips above.

Check out:  “Green wax” from The New Scientist