Keeping the drinks local was a little harder to do. While we have plenty of good wineries and breweries in the region, ultimately we just couldn’t afford to follow our principles to the letter – the wine would have cost at least 3 times as much, and the beer would have been a third more expensive. We did have one keg of local beer, with the rest coming from national breweries. Of course the fact we used returnable kegs for the beer also cut down on waste. The rest of our tableware was a combination of rented plates and glasses, or compostable disposables.

Flowers were beautiful, abundant, and grown without nasty chemicals by the wonderful SEEDS, a local inner-city community garden that we have previously reported on here. We displayed them in glass Ball Jars that were begged or borrowed from friends and relatives, or bought from thrift stores, over the previous year. And the grounds were illuminated by lanterns made from old tin cans, though unfortunately the candles inside were the usual run-of-the-mill petroleum-based varieties (once again, the budget wouldn’t allow anything else). We also rejected the idea of wedding favors, opting instead to donate to local charities in our guests’ honor.

So, overall, through a combination of choosing the right venue, and the right suppliers (and friends!), and doing a bunch of stuff ourselves, we did pretty well on sourcing local food, reducing packaging, and generally minimising the impact of our celebrations. Some options were simply outside of our budget, but then the low budget also meant we were forced to focus on the more simple, basic pleasures, rather than over-the-top decadence and indulgence – and I’m pretty sure the event was better off for it. Nevertheless, inviting 100 people to a party is always going to have a large ecological footprint. As mentioned in our green wedding guide, the more people you invite, the more will travel, the more food you have to provide, and the more waste is produced. This is, to some degree, inevitable. However, we were aware that some eco-minded friends were unwilling to fly to the ceremony, and others just simply couldn’t afford it. Given that I am from the UK, and my wife is from the US, this obviously meant that many friends could not attend. Fortunately, the wonders of modern technology meant that a simple hook up with a laptop, a web cam, and Skype meant that an alternative wedding reception was held over cans of beer back in 'the old country', so guests from both side of the Atlantic could join in the fun (pictured).

However important the details above may be, it would be remiss of me not to point out the most important green aspect of the event – the love and celebration, not only of our union, but of our beliefs and values. So many guests commented on the beautiful, relaxed, fun nature of the day’s events, that we’re pretty convinced they left with a favourable view of this treehugging life. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return to wedded bliss…

For another reflection on our celebrations, check out my colleague’s blog post over at Tao of Change.

Thanks to TAO and Jerry, and Schwepples & Bits for the photos!