The Nepalese Paper Company
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 08.28.07
OK, so the wedding season may be nearing its close for this year, but a new one is never too far away. For those folks out there who are planning your big day, you may already be thinking about what invitations to send. We’ve previously brought you posts about Invite Site, Seal and Send, and we’ve even fielded readers’ queries about potential suppliers. Now we’d like to add another supplier to the list of possibilities – the Nepalese Paper Company, the California-based distributors of tree-free fair trade handmade craft papers from Nepal. They produce a beautiful range of products, from stationary to cardstocks and prayer flags, but this is what they have to say about their wedding invitation set:
“As you open the card, the Bodhi leaf, thought to bring its owner patience and enlightenment, floats up towards you, bringing the patience to you. Enclosed inside is your invitation, with your RSVP card and envelope. These sets come in all natural for a very elegant look, or we can customize them to any color combination you chose for a very personalized, classic look. They can also be custom ordered with a very subtle leaf stain in any color.”
For more tips on celebrating sustainably, check out our guide on How to Green Your Wedding. ::The Nepalese Paper Company:: via site visit::
As a free market capitalist, I am generally forgiving of FairTrade stuff, but some of them have been associated with communism (small 'c'). I mention this as there is currently a sizable Maoist insurgency underway in Nepal. And while the nation is in need of refrom, the Maoists have IMO are the worst of Nepal's bad bunnies. It is worth finding out weather or not this FairTrade company is a front for the Maoists.
To say this is a completely idiotic post on a website dedicated to the environment is to broadcast the obvious. Paper is a very heavy product that does not need to be made in Nepal. Paper that is made in Nepal must be shipped OUT of Nepal by air or by very tortuous truck routes.
It is fair to say that these invitations will have travelled well over 7000 miles before they even get to their average user. Probably by air. Destroying one aspect of the ecosystem to possibly promote another is not the way to go.
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Author's Comment:
I would beg to disagree with you on this. While paper may be a heavy product, the emissions it produces are relative to how much of it you have. While I agree that the office paper we go through by the tonne would be silly to import from Nepal, I can ahrdly see that luxury craft items such as this are going to create a large amount of emissions, relative to their benefits in terms of trade and providing folks with safe, dignified livelihoods.
My point is that international trade can have huge development benefits, and these need to be weighed up against the emissions that are produced. High-quality, high-priced craft items like this offer a large amount of income to the producer communities (at least when they are Fair Trade) for a relatively small amount of non-perishable product (therefore very unlikely to be shipped by air). In this sense wine, craft items, jewellery and intellectual property are all excellent items for (fair) international trade -roses, green beans and tourists are not.
How about using email? This is a wired audience.
Anonymous:
Using email isn't practical for wedding invitations for all guests. My grandma doesn't have access to a computer and would be appalled if I phoned her the invite.
In addition to not being practical, it's also not very formal. My grandmother wouldn't have been the only one to be appalled at anything not received in the post. My wedding invitations were the only thing I've put in the post in probably two or three years, and I'm perfectly ok with making that kind of exception for my wedding.
I used Sweet Invitations, which are 100% tree-free, and handmade in India.
P.S. There are two instances of using "it's" instead of "its" in this article.
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Author's comment
Thanks for the thoughts, and the grammar correction! I'll edit those right away. We do try to keep is as accurate as possible, but I must confess that the difference between it's and its has long been my grammatical downfall.