Going to the (Green) Chapel & We're Gonna Get Married...
by Kristin Underwood, San Diego, CA on 02.10.07
Kind of makes your eco-conscience hurt when you start to add your eco-footprint up for this one event, which is why Treehuggers and non-Treehuggers alike are opting for a second look at the traditional wedding. Couples today are asking for donations instead of gifts, offsetting carbon emissions of guests travel with tree-plantings, choosing conflict-free rings, using green invitations green invitations, choosing local flower varieties for bouquets, and wearing recycled or eco-wedding dresses. Green weddings also allow the couple to bring up green topics in conversations with their guests, according to one couple when they told their guests about their silverware selection, and were asked, “what do you mean forks made out of potato?”
With all of the money, time and energy spent on weddings, it’s logical that there is a lot to say about the issue – Treehugger has 58 articlesdevoted just to the topic of green weddings. There is even an “ethical” wedding planning company, Ethical Weddings, and several green wedding planning books. Now that there are plenty of companies offering green and organic products for daily life, its easier to pick amongst these to cover things like food and flowers for your event. Remember, the easiest way to green your wedding is just to keep it simple (which can also save you some green). Cut down on the things that are not deal-breakers and, according to one bride, “…start your life together in a way that’s in line with your values and beliefs.”
We had a "green" wedding, and it was more successful than we ever imagined it could be. We had the wedding halfway between our families, so that no one had too far to travel, we provided people with train and bus schedules and told everyone who was driving a car that they would have to pick up anyone who took the train or bus, encouraged carpooling, gave biking directions, and asked people to bring bikes for a bike parade afterwards. We also had a vegan caterer make delicious food and another vegan caterer make our cake. We rented a covered picknic area in a state park as a fair weather back up, but were lucky to have beautiful sunny weather and got to have the ceremony in the woods, and the reception up on the hill of the park, overlooking the ocean.
Oh, and we ourselves got there by taking the train and biking.
And I made my husband's and my outfits. His was made from clothes I got at a thrift shop and redesigned to look like a Robin Hood costume, and mine was handmade to look like a medieval lady's gown. No one else was required to dress up, though we did encourage other costumes, if people had them. The cool thing is that we not only looked really cool, but we still have those outfits and can wear them to costume parties and renaissance fairs and such.
We asked people not to give us gifts, though we didn't refuse a large chunk of cash that we used to buy some land that we hope someday to turn into an organic farm...
Hi,
Another option for organic cotton, hemp/silk, and 100% silk wedding dresses is from Olivia Luca. www.OliviaLuca.com On our web site you can use our fun interactive tool to design your own dress and choose the fabric.
We are dedicated to finding as many sustainable options for fabrics as possible that work with our designs and add them to the site as they become available.
Our business practices come from a sustainable point of view. All of our shipments in and out are offset with the purchase of Green Tags. We strongly encourage alternative modes to transportation and alternative energy. We donate all of our fabric scraps to a local non-profit low-income artists guild who reuses them to make additional items. These among other everyday things like the three R's help us towards our goals of being a sustainable business.
All of our garments are sewn in Portland, Oregon in our own bright and cheery studio, no long hours bent over sewing machines overseas!
The real problem currently is the limited choice of responsible fabric options. While there are lots of knits out there, there are few woven fabrics that are easily available to small companies and applicable to wedding and party dresses. We are in hot pursuit of them and will be adding them as them to our options as they become available.
You can also check out Portvert.com for additional sustainable wedding ideas and resources, and Harmony Art for fabrics, she has links to other fabric options on her site.
Cheers,
Terri Spaeth-Merrick
Olivia Luca
www.olivialuca.com
Portland, Oregon
ONE MORE WAY TO GREEN YOUR WEDDING:
On Feb. 14, Portovert Magazine and Native Energy are launching the first and only wedding carbon calculator. Look for more information on the Portovert Magazine homepage (www.portovert.com) starting tomorrow -- or at NativeEnergy (www.nativeenergy.com).
I saw that Days of Our Lives is also having a storyline of a green wedding. Hopefully this will catch on and become the standard. There are alot of things couples can do to add green planning ideas to their wedding without sacrificing elegance. There are also alot of ecotravel options out there for the honeymoon. I wrote an article the other day on Our Wedding Plus blog about this and found that not only will lessen the impact on the environment, they seem to be alot more exciting than the standard resort honeymoons you see.