I have always been into being green. When I moved in with my fiance, he was really excited that I was going to put a green plan in place in his apartment! I designated areas to collect our recycling, what we would recycle, and even talked him into riding his bike to work instead of driving.

For our wedding, our caterer will donate any extra food to local organizations feeding the homeless and underprivileged in Philadelphia. We’ll use recycled paper for the invites. I don’t believe in wasting paper with the extra envelopes for invitations and I am also going to make the reply card a postcard so that no envelope is needed for that. We chose an outdoor ceremony and reception on site at a local arts center surrounded by gorgeous trees and forested areas. That will reduce the amount of decorations we will need for the reception and completely eliminate them for the ceremony!

Thanks so much for the chance at the giveaway! Have a great day!

My fiance and I are getting married next June. We live on the west coast but our families still live in the Midwest where we grew up. We chose to have the wedding back home because we knew there would be a much smaller carbon footprint if the majority of our guests didn’t have to travel cross-country. We’re trying to keep our wedding financially reasonable and green- this extends from the invites to the food to the ceremony site and hopefully to the dress!

Environmental ethics and green living is an important part of my life. I’ve worked for a non-profit environmental group since my college graduation, where I majored in environmental studies. I’m also getting my master’s with a focus on local-to-global environmental communication. My fiance is a writer and is also environmentally savvy. We eat locally, recycle and find little ways to make a difference.

More than anything, what makes us a great match is our love of being outdoors, trees, and the environment. So it seemed natural to celebrate trees and nature during our most important day.

Firstly, we’re getting married in the countryside! We contacted a small (and amazing!) land trust to see if they could help with our ceremony site. This trust works to help landowners in the area conserve their private lands through conservation easements. It’s an important issue since most of the land here is privately owned. This group does essential work to preserve some of the best natural areas–including woodlands (trees!) and to educate the public about why this is important. They also do restoration work (reforestation!).

We wanted to say our vows in a beautiful place that will stay beautiful forever! Lucky for us, this land trust was touched by our interest, and they’ve found us a beautiful knoll on conserved land with panoramic views of the countryside! We couldn’t have asked for anything better. Guests will throw bird seed.

We’re sending 100% recycled paper save-the-dates using a custom stamp and the rest of our information will be on our wedding website! No more paper (though we love the idea of paper you can plant!). The wedding is a family affair, as most are. Because we’re in control, we can make sure the materials we get are eco-friendly. My mom’s an artist and will be getting all the non-toxic paint and recycled paper for our placecards. My parent’s have a beautiful garden and so we’re planting the native grasses, mosses and flowers we want for the wedding now. My bouquet will be wildflowers cut from my mother’s backyard garden. The floral industry is one of my strongest human health and environmental concerns and so I hope more brides will think about where their flowers come from. Local is BEST!

We’re going to have moss-filled terrariums as our centerpieces. Our family and friends will be able to keep them afterward. We’re scouting through local antique stores to find vintage mason jars and vases instead of buying new.

Instead of favors, we’re making a donation to the land trust. We’re also considering planting a tree for each guest- through the Plant a Billion Trees Campaign. We’re using vintage napkins and linens, and my mom is going to make many cupcakes instead of going to a fancy bakery in the nearest big city (an 1.5 hour drive!). We’re trying to find little ways to have vintage and old items in our wedding. We’ve found our porcelain owl wedding cake toppers on ebay for $5!

We chose our reception site because the catering company there is well-known for their sustainable, local dining services. They work with local farmers to get seasonal, sustainably-grown meat, dairy, and other grains. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 12, and even though many of our guests aren’t, we’ve decided to have two vegetarian, locally-grown dinner options. This way the meal will stay fresh, delicious and in tune with our ethics.

The only part of our wedding I’m struggling to make green is with my wedding dress! I want to look beautiful (and stay green) on my wedding day and once I saw the Vert line, I was stunned by the elegance of these gowns, but also so pleased and amazed that they were eco-friendly!!

I wanted to submit our wedding plan because I do think we’re truly a “green” couple throwing a “green” wedding party. In addition to the standard things you can do to have a more eco-friendly celebration, we want to honor the landscape we grew up on with our guests. We’re so glad we are working with our local land trust to make this idea a reality. Though a lot of the details I shared don’t directly relate to trees/reforestation, they are part of a larger conservation ethic, which is the basis for reforestation and creating protected habitats for trees and the species that depend upon them.

Local – it is important to us that our guests not be required to travel too far to attend our wedding. To that end, we picked a venue that was central to the places from which our guests would be traveling. I know that this seems like a simple and relatively unsophisticated measure, but of all our decisions, it will certainly have the greatest positive effect on the environment. Our decision to go with a venue close to home in Massachusetts instead of one of the many beautiful Vermont venues we considered saved almost 3 metric tons of Co2 emissions! And that’s for a smaller wedding of only 80 guests.

Offsets and trees – instead of more traditional favors for our guests, we will be purchasing carbon offsets to neutralize impact of the carbon emissions that our guests do create in traveling to our wedding. As an additional “party favor,” we will be having a tree planted in the name of each of our guests in areas around the world where reforestation will do the most good.

Venue – we are having our ceremony and reception at a venue owned and operated by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. The setting will be fantastic – a beautifully maintained formal garden in the middle of the woods. The environmental benefit here is knowing that our site fee will be going towards land conservation and habitat preservation.

Local foods – another important one for us, and one that I’m pleased other posters have considered, is having our caterer use locally grown produce in preparing our dinner options.

Thanks again for the providing the impetus for starting this dialogue. Great that so many upcoming weddings are focused on making the celebration both beautiful and climate-conscious.