Eco-Weddings

Pollution and the Environment Poster
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Going Green

The environment has become an increasingly important issue in recent years. Many people are now trying to do their bit to save our planet by living an environmentally friendly lifestyle. One expression of this is the green or eco-wedding.

What Is An Eco-Wedding?

An eco-wedding is simply a wedding designed to be more enironmentally friendly than the normal event. There are many gradations of this, how far you go is up to you. Being "greener" isn't an all or nothing proposition. It's quite possible to have a perfectly traditional Western wedding that also promotes environmental sensitivity.

Perhaps the first place to start when planning an eco-wedding is the location. The further people have to travel, the more environmental damage they do. Can you arrange a wedding venue easily accessible by public transport? Or perhaps you could hire buses to bring people into town en masse and reduce carbon emissions. Where people do need to drive, they could be asked offset their carbon emissions - there are a number of organisations that will plant trees etc for that purpose.

Food - and drink - is a big factor in any wedding. Is it possible to buy locally produced food rather than goods that have travelled thousands of miles? Do any of your potential suppliers have good environmental standards? Does animal welfare matter to you? Perhaps you could consider organic food and favors, free from artificial pesticides and much else. Buying Fair Trade products is another ethically sound option. If there's a particular food you really want, perhaps you could pick the date of the wedding to ensure it's in season and at its best locally.

What about the flowers? How many miles will they have travelled? Is there a local, environmentally friendly grower you could use instead?

Weddings use a lot of paper - could the invitations, orders of service, reception menus etc be printed on recycled paper? And the packaging from all those presents could certainly be collected for recycling.

Once you get into the habit of thinking green you soon realise that for an eco-wedding there's an environmentally sound alternative to almost anything. If you really wanted, you could even buy a wedding dress made from eco-friendly materials. But that's probably going too far for most people.

Which brings me to one final thought: don't let all this ruin the wedding for you! Be a realist rather than a perfectionist.

Weddings can be stressful enough as it is without giving yourself unnecessary headaches. If you want an eco-wedding, great. Do as much or as little as seems right for you, don't feel guilty if you don't go the whole way. Even if you just ask your shortlist of suppliers "What are your ethical principles?" then that's a good start. Every little helps - a visit to an eco-wedding and lifestyle show may be a way to get some ideas.

The environment is important and going green is a good thing to do, but don't forget that this is your special day.

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