Weddings! They are wonderful from head to toe, whether we’re thinking about the vibrant, lively decor, the smiles and excitement on everyone’s faces, or the handsome and beautiful groom and bride that are lucky enough to have met each other.
Weddings, however… they’re stressful. Very stressful. One of the most memorable experiences of your life can be endearing, important, and more than a bit nerve-racking, all at the same time.
To make matters worse, the environment is rapidly changing for the worst, with pollution clogging up the atmosphere so badly it is almost impossible to see the clear sky in some parts of the world.
If you’re planning to have a wedding during this uncertain time, then an added worry could be your contribution to climate change and the slow yet oncoming death of our planet. Sure, you hope your love might last forever, but it might not.
Do you know what will last forever, though? Each and every plastic cup you’ll be using for your wedding, with an estimated life expectancy of about 500 years before they decompose.
You don’t even need to say it: yes, it sounds scary. Here’s how you can fix it, though! This article describes a small list of ideas about how you can turn your planet-killing wedding into an eco-friendly alternative, so read on to find out more.
Looking for a fashionable alternative to carrier bags? Try recycled cotton tote bags instead !
Why Do I Need to be Eco-Friendly?
The planet is dying. In no uncertain terms, if it’s worth adding, since we know for a fact that our lifestyles are drastically going to change within the next 50 years. Whether that’s because we’re going to have a lack of clean drinking water, living space, or air to breathe is a matter of debate that remains to be seen.
You, me, and everyone else - we - need to be eco-friendly so as to ensure our successors are able to enjoy the same luxuries we have come to take for granted, such as endless drinking water and electricity.
Unfortunately, being environmentally conscious is not easy. There’s no hiding the fact that going out of your way to protect the planet, which seems so big when compared to us, seems tedious and inconsequential.
The truth is that every action you do with the planet and environment in mind makes a wealth of difference. We just don’t realize it because the scale of eliminating pollution is tremendous.
Therefore, the next time you throw away a plastic cup or a single-use shopping bag, think about the fact that it’s going to survive for about 4-6 times your life expectancy, doing nothing but looking ugly and dirtying the environment.
So let’s stop using them altogether. Instead, let’s take a look at the alternatives.
5 Eco-friendly Wedding Suggestions
Having a wedding isn’t easy. Thankfully, having an eco-friendly wedding isn’t much harder either. There are a lot of ideas you could apply to the most important moment of your life, so don’t feel constrained by this list or whatever concept you’ve seen peddled on Instagram.
Always strive to make your wedding your own. It doesn’t matter what you feel it has or doesn’t, as long as it accurately reflects you and your spouse. Some people choose to have their weddings in their backyards with no one to spectate them but the wind and the leaves, and eat Doritos right after.
If they’re having fun over theirs, why should you stress out over yours?
1. Good Location
Experienced wedding planners often say that locations can make or break a wedding. A common reason why someone might not show up, for example, is that it might be too far or just generally too inconvenient to travel there.
The best location choice for a wedding would be one where every guest can comfortably show up. That way, you’ll ensure you’ll have a large number of people attending and saving money by not sending as many “Wish you were here!” cards.
What makes this suggestion eco-friendly is that picking a good location that allows most of your guests to travel quickly and lightly will cut down on fuel consumption. A car consumes a lot of fuel to go from A to Z, let alone an airplane. If you’re inviting guests from another state or continent, then you’re pretty much burning through a whole dinosaur’s worth of fuel per invitation.
Therefore, less traveling time equals less fuel spent, equals less pollution, equals a happier Earth, and a happier you! Besides, you won’t have to hear them complain about how long it took to get there.
2. Organic Food
Another superb way of reducing your carbon footprint is by making sure all of your food is organic. If you’re able to find a catering company that advertises itself as being organic, then it would make a huge difference in the battle against climate change.
Additionally, you can also visit your local farmer’s market and make a couple of friends and contacts that can supply your wedding with the food it needs to give everyone a proper boost of energy.
This is good for a lot of reasons. It helps reinforce the economy and supports farmers, making it easier for healthier food to show up on supermarket shelves, for one. It also feeds you and your guests properly since fruits and vegetables that have been grown naturally have more nutrients.
Furthermore, it discourages the production of chemically-grown food, which is usually pumped full of growth hormones that ruin their energy value. Vegetables and fruits, for example, are almost always coated with some manner of pesticide, which is why you’re always supposed to wash them before eating.
Buying organic food also opens up the opportunity for a vegetarian menu. However, it’s not recommended you make it fully vegan or vegetarian since a lot of people will be expecting meat and would be invariably disappointed or disgruntled without it.
Instead, you can supplement many meal items with organic alternatives. Fries and steak? How about baby carrots chopped up in the style of French fries instead? Feel free to be creative with your food. The catering company you’re working with will undoubtedly have ideas, so remember to ask.
3. Less Flowers
We all like flowers - but they die. A drastic start to a sentence, but one that applies to almost every mother, teacher, or particularly beloved person: they receive a lot of flowers that wilt due to inconvenience or a lack of sunlight and good temperature conditions.
That’s only the beginning of the problem. Believe it or not, growing flowers has a hugely negative impact on the environment. The main reason for this is that importing flowers into a country produces many carbon emissions since they are mostly transported by refrigerated airplane holds.
Not only that, but gift bouquet transportation itself consumes a great deal of fossil fuel as well. During Valentine’s Day, large metropolitan areas such as New York or Los Angeles produce enough carbon dioxide to make up for several thousand cars’ worth of emissions a year, and that’s just for taking a handful of roses a couple of city blocks away.
The alternative? Evergreen plants and shrubs! Daisies are always going to be adorable, and the lilac flower looks nice, but what about a Japanese Skimmia, or a Juniper tree? Doubly so if you’re going for a winter wonderland theme.
While evergreen plants aren’t as flashy as more traditional choices, they have a beauty of their own that most people aren’t aware of. Expand their horizons by presenting the most gorgeous, die-hard plants you can find!
4. Bio Stationery
To some people, a wedding isn’t a wedding without stationery. In case you don’t know what that is, stationery is any good made out of paper, such as a wedding invitation or a thank you card.
Stationery doesn’t mean much to others, while it means the world to some. In truth, there is a large stereotype around weddings: say, your sister gets married, and you jump with joy when she sends you a hand-written invitation - just like in every romance movie, ever.
That’s fanciful, but it kills the environment. Is slowly ending the planet worth a tacky little piece of paper with some pretentious words written on it? If your answer is, “Yes!” then at least let us convince you to opt for eco-friendly alternatives.
There are many stationary businesses that advertise themselves as being organic. For example, the most popular vendors use a brilliant marketing strategy in which they promise to plant a tree for every order they get. How ingenious is that?
Conversely, if you’re really championing for the environment like no one else, then consider dropping stationery altogether and sending your invites via e-mail. A paper invite might be traditional, but an e-mail invite can include funny GIFs.
5. Consciousness
There are a lot of options at your disposal when it comes to making a small difference. You can, for example, make a large difference for the environment by choosing to get married at a national park, which helps fund it its maintenance.
On the other hand, you could be replacing all single-use plastic bags used for transportation or catering with high-quality cotton tote bags that can be reused. Less work on the environment because of avoiding plastic, more satisfaction for you in the long run.
Furthermore, you could purchase your alcohol from organically sourced breweries. The sky is the limit when it comes to consciousness, so feel free to experiment and find new ways to sustain Mother Earth!
Your Effort Counts
The planet is big, and we’re small. It can be easy to think that what we do to help the environment doesn’t really matter in the big picture.
That is, however, very far from the truth.
Since almost everyone in the world doesn’t care that much about the environment, then every action a conscientious person undertakes makes a lot more of a difference. Therefore, consider changing your expectations of a wedding in order to accommodate the planet as well.
In the end, it will reward you!