From Location to Invitations: Ideas on How to Plan a Wedding While Also Protecting the Earth

Sustainability practices are starting to become more top of mind across many facets of our lives. No matter your motivation for it, helping to keep our Earth and natural resources protected is an important effort. Whether you’re making choices to exclude wasteful things, using opportunities to reuse and recycle or you’re finding eco-friendly alternatives, your wedding planning is rife with potential to make more sustainable choices. Here are a few Earth-friendly tips to consider when you are planning your wedding!

Avoid Wasteful Additions to Your Wardrobe

A wedding involves far more fanfare than just the wedding day itself. While you’re planning your wedding, you’ll also be attending an engagement party, planning showers and a rehearsal dinner, as well as having other wedding related events to attend. Today’s pressures might lead you to feel the need to purchase a whole wedding wardrobe to be sure you’re photo-ready for each party. Rather than buying brand new outfits for each occasion, consider an alternative like thrift shopping. Using an online second-hand retailer, you can still shop for new-to-you outfits for all of the upcoming parties while extending the life of these items. As a consumer, giving clothes a longer lifespan is one of the best things you can do for the environment, rather than contributing to the demand for brand new clothes.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

Location: Indoor and Outdoor Considerations

When you’re thinking about where you want to get married and have the reception, there are quite a few factors to consider that can impact your wedding’s carbon footprint. Depending on where you live, and the feasibility with its climate, one of the best options for a venue is the great outdoors. Setting up outside means you can use natural light and cut way back on the potential consumption of energy. One of the outdoor wedding benefits is the potential to save a lot of waste, since the scenery of your outdoor wedding would require far less decorations that otherwise might just be disposed of.

If you need to take your wedding indoors, pay attention to their natural light situation while you’re scoping places out. If you can take advantage of large windows and avoid flipping those switches on, then you can still save energy. Think about choosing a venue that is already aesthetically pleasing or is already decorated in a manner that could provide the backdrop for your big day as is, and avoid those decorations that often go to waste. If the venue does need a little decorative help, search for wedding party rentals to be sure nothing is going to waste!

Photo by Keenan Barber on Unsplash

Catering Is All About Where and When

While you’re sourcing your caterer, there are two big factors to keep top of mind: what food is in season and where are they getting their food? Think about what time of year it will be when you are serving up that reception dinner. When you create a menu with the caterer, for the lowest impact possible, be sure to pick produce that is in season. This ensures that your dinner can be locally sourced and doesn’t have to travel far. Picking a caterer that is near your venue or opting to use the venue’s onsite catering if available also limits the distance people are traveling to serve up the delicious food on your big day. It might seem overwhelming to keep track of all of these green recommendations, so keep handy environmentally-friendly catering tips to refer back to!

Invitations That Bud More Than Responses

Once you’ve chosen your venue and date, it's easy to be eager to send out save-the-dates and the wedding invitations. These things, while necessary to get information to people, also hold a lot of potential for waste. Eventually your wedding will pass and the invite will be put in the trash. Not only can you shop for many alternatives to ordinary paper, like invites made from recycled paper, you can also choose something a little more symbolic for your special occasion. A poetic choice might be to use plantable wedding invitations. As your love for one another grows each day, so can a plant inspired by your special day.  

Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash

Eco-friendly Plantable Guest Favor

Blooming petal cones are a very unique and affordable Eco-friendly option.  All fiber used in the paper making is from 100% recycled/renewable sources.  Use for your guest toss & fill them with our biodegradable petals.  Your guests shower you with rose petals when you walk back down your wedding Aisle.  They make a fantastic keepsake for you. A favor your guests to take home...they plant them and they will bloom.. Every year when your wildflowers bloom, everyone will be transported back to the joy of the day & fun that was had celebrating your wedding. Our beautiful Petal Cones are crafted from 100% cotton handmade sheets with a natural deckle edge. Planting instructions are included. "Plant this blooming cone in your garden & wildflowers will blossom year after year."

Photo: Flyboy Naturals Plantable Petal Cones eco-friendly petal cones

Don’t Blow Bubbles

One tradition that already has many alternatives is the moment when the bride and groom exit their wedding and their guests throw rice to symbolize good fortune for their lives together. However, many venues don’t allow the throwing of rice anymore, citing it as bad for birds. Speculation says the real motivation behind this is the cleanup of the rice from the lawn or their building is too difficult with the rice being so fine. It is also apparently quite slippery and has even caused injury due to people slipping on it. Some alternatives, like blowing bubbles, involve everyone getting their own plastic container of bubbles, which will just be thrown away after this mere minute of use. Instead, choose an eco-friendly rose petal that would be much easier to clean up, won’t be slipped on and, if left behind in the lawn, will quickly decompose or be mulched up the next time the grass gets mowed.  

Look below for a few of the lovely eco-friendly rose petal options Flyboy Naturals offers.

Photo: Flyboy Naturals Eco-friendly  Shabby Chic Rose Petal Blend

Photo: Flyboy Naturals Eco-friendly Passionate Pink Rose Petals

Photo: Flyboy Naturals Eco-friendly Assorted Flower Petal Blend