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We're holding the ceremony and reception in the same place to cut down on our wedding's carbon footprint. We also are using recycled centerpieces (e-bay and some creativity) and our charger plates are doubling as our wedding favors (small family only gathering so each family will end up with a set of 4 plates, and each family happens to have 4 people). Ironically, our plates are green, as it's one of my colors!
so far it's using less paper, and what we do use is recycled and/or cotton..trying to not have too many "wedding specific" purchases...things I will use again! The one thing I was naughtiest on was my dress, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with our vendors. If we had more $, I would've liked to do better food...Oh, and we made our invites, favors (flower seed that attracts birds/butterflies), etc. We are using most of the stuff that comes w/ our reception site & payed the extra for rental stemware, instead of acrylic.
My FH is planting 4000 trees on his farm in April. We are also giving out trees as our wedding favor so each person can plant them.
We've gone green in a number of ways:
1) electronic save the date
2) everyone is staying on site all weekend for the wedding (decreased carbon footprint)
3) live potted centerpieces
4) having the wedding in a location that cuts down on travel for the majority of attendees
5) recycled lanterns and other decorations... sharing with other brides
6) horse and carriage as get-a-way "car"
That's all I can think of right now, but we've tried to do the whole thing in a green way.
You guys have some great responses!
I really love Chela429's idea about using saplings as favors! How charming.
Keep 'em coming, Hive! 
We have decided not to print anything unnecessary (such as menu cards), as well as using reusuable plates, silverware, linens, etc.
One of my couples from last year (I'm a photographer) had a really green wedding- it was awesome.
Their "registry" was a list of things they were looking for, so if anyone saw them at a thrift store or garage sale, they were encouraged to pick them up. It included wooden spoons, stainless steel pans, ect.
Their centerpieces were green and brown wine bottles, glass dishes from thrift stores, ect. Even the guests helps by saving and looking for things throughout the year.
Their "cake' was actually a dessert table with sweets made by family members- with favorite family recipes.
Rather than her own bouquet, the bride gave each member of the bridal party two flowers. She collected one of them from each attendant, and tied her own bouquet at the altar- this signified the affect each of them had had on their lives to make them the strong couple that they were. All the girls wore a dress that they picked out in the correct color (different styles) and were asked to make sure they'd wear it again. The guys wore slacks, dress shirts, and ties- which they would wear again.
They even went to a football game in their hometown and picked up the heavy plastic cups after a pro football game that would have been thrown away. Then they washed and sanitized them all and asked their guests to use them for the beer keg.
Their wedding and reception were held at a site that is certified green by Travel Green Wisconsin, and used sustainable green practices. (If you are in Wisconsin, check it out: Justin Trails resort. It's way cool. :))
Lastly, their wedding program was printed. BUT it was printed to be a keepsake- it had all the dessert recipes, explained how they were trying to be "green" and why it was important to them, information on where to buy carbon offsets, stories about how they became friends with each of their wedding party, and the story of how they became a couple. And how great was that program? It was so great that I actually kept it- and I was just the photographer. AND... I might add that I even made one of the recipes in it! lol
If anyone has any questions, feel free to email. I walked away from that wedding feeling like i needed to make more of an effort to be green. So- you could all ask your photographers to provide digital proofs rather than printed ones, so you choose which prints will be printed on paper and use chemicals. Then you get the ones that mean the most to you, rather than some that might not mean anything.
Whew- that was a long post! :D
We have been thinking about the green factor as well. We plan on creating the bridesmaids bouts out of clay so that it is something they can keep forever. We also plan on giving out packets of seeds to our guest to encourage them to plant a seed for love.
Our program will be printed on recycled paper and we plan on having recycling containers at the wedding so that the items that do go to waste are recycled ( Plastic, Paper, glass, etc...)
We thinking about a few other options but thats our start
I insisted that our venue NOT offer bottle water. Our location was just down the road from the spring that produces Big Indian Spring Water (their water actually really does come from a natural spring in the Catskill Mountains) so I felt people could just drink the tap water!
Also, the venue we chose served organic, locally grown fruits and veggies.
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you came up with great eco-friendly ideas! here are some ways that we're trying to be more green: we reduced the amount of paper (it's recycled paper) we used for invites, which includes using organza favor bags as our inner envelopes so people can reuse them. we'll print front and back for the directions, accomodations, and general information. also, i bought my used wedding dress from a charity event. furthermore, my wedding ring belonged to one of my family members, and i met the gemstone supplier who supplied the gemstone for my engagement ring - he said that all his gemstones are fair-trade. we will reuse some of our church ceremony decorations in our reception as well, and almost all of our vases and decorations are rented or act as favors.
We're doing almost everything mentioned above! Here is our list:
-minimize paperwaste on invites (postcard save the dates and RSVP) and use 100% recycled paper
-bouquets will be made of local flowers (we'll pick them up from the grower!)
-centerpieces will be live potted plants
-registered for a lot of bamboo items and one of the places is super eco-friendly (Viva Terra)
-bridesmaids/MOH had choice of color (from a range) and choice of dress - making them 2x as likely to wear it again!
-compost! in addition to recycling things we will have a food waste bin for leftovers (that aren't donate-able) and for our tree-free napkins (from sugar cane byproducts) and compostable cups (venue only provides mugs, not glasses)
-our venue has china and silverware for us to use
-using local venders for pretty much everything!
-my e-ring has a conflict free diamond, and we made our wedding bands through the wedding ring workshop with a local jeweler, and my band has diamonds from my grandmother's ring
-horse & carriage (though this isn't *really* green...they'll have to trailer the horse into town, but we can pretend!)
Probably other things that I can't remember right now...but we're always doing more when we think of them!
We made sure that our venue recycled - we donated teh left over food to a local food bank, and many of teh flowers went to a local hospice. Other than that most things we save and sold so that other brides can use them without buying new... save a little money adn a little virgin materials.
I'm happy to see so many couples making an effort to be green!
We:
-used 100% recycled paper for the save the dates and invites, minimizing waste by doing postcard save the dates and RSVP
-asked guests not to buy us gifts and instead listed two charities on our website registry
-are using a local flower grower
-are holding rehearsal/wedding/reception all in same place (beautiful state park!) with cabins for guests to stay on-site to minimize driving
-are using real dishes and cloth napkins made from thrift store sheets
-made centerpiece vases from recycled wine bottles
-are serving local beer!
-also my ring and dress are both vintage, hence "recycled"
It's been fun trying to incorporate our beliefs into our wedding! I hope this post gives everyone more ideas to make a fun "green" wedding.
Sadly, our wedding is in Vegas, which is like the Anti-eco. Most of our attire is stuff we can wear again though, if that helps.
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Hi Hive!
Are you doing anything to make your wedding eco-friendly?
So far we've decided to use 100% recycled cardstock for our invitations and to use real china & glassware even though our reception is a casual backyard BBQ so that we won't generate as much waste. We're also spending our wedding dollars with local independent businesses as much as we can, and are having our ceremony & reception at the same location to reduce the amount of driving our guests will have to do.
We're brainstorming other ideas as we go along, so hopefully we'll be able to do more, and I'd love to hear what you guys are doing!
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