Simple Ways to Green Your Wedding

Hope you enjoy our post today from a guest blogger!

If you’re vying to be eco-conscious in every aspect of your life, try carrying over this habit to tying the knot! There are a myriad of resources to help you make your big day green with small ways to make sure your wedding doesn’t leave a big carbon footprint behind (and save some dough from that escalating bill… )

Here are some ideas:

• Reuse. You don’t need to buy everything new to create beautiful decorations for your guests.  Old canning jars can get a new breath of life with some sand.  Candles, small toys or old ceramics can make for quirky, earth-friendly favors for your guests.
• Go vintage. Everything old is new again, and this is especially true of weddings. Vintage rings are currently the rage, and many classical silhouettes in wedding dresses can look just as great today as the first time around.
• Rethink the location. While having a wedding in a quaint, out of town setting may be tempting, destination weddings require your guests to venture a longer distance, consuming more resources, and ultimately equaling  pollution. Instead, try to choose a location closer to where (the majority of) your guests call home.
• Green your invitations. If you still want to send out the traditional wedding invite, use recycled papers and soy-based inks or consider paring it down to a single postcard.  Or you could scratch paper overall and consider email invites instead.
• Buy local. From flowers to foods, you’ll be doing the earth a favor by buying products from local businesses. Flowers that are in season are much better for the environment than ones that aren’t. For a divine meal, try to find foods that are not only local but organic too.
• Mix it up. Not everything at your wedding has to match exactly for it to be beautiful. Using a variety of dinnerware, dresses or even flowers can make for an eclectic but still classy affair.

Remember that you can still have the wedding of your dreams without sacrificing your green ambitions. With a little compromise and inventiveness, you can have a wedding that’s beautiful AND environmentally sound as well!

Posted by guest blogger Meredith Walker.  Meredith writes about the online bachelors degree and welcomes your feedback at MeredithWalker1983@gmail.com