Why Green Weddings & Commitment Celebrations?

A green wedding is a celebration that incorporates ecologically and socially responsible products and services into all aspects of the planning and festivities. From invitations to wedding attire, ceremony and reception sites, food and beverages, flowers, travel, honeymoon destination, and countless other details, the couple considers what impact their choices will have upon the planet and those who inhabit it. The good news is that there are plenty of green options for creating the uniquely elegant and personal wedding that you envision. And granola and Birkenstocks are definitely not a requirement - although both can be elegant if they are your style!

But back to the first question - why green weddings and commitment celebrations? It may appear that the impact of going green for a one-time event lasting only a few hours would be a very small slice of the huge ecological pie (or wedding cake, in this case!). The truth is that each environmentally sound action you take does make a difference. You’ll find several examples of the impact of individual actions throughout the Green Elegance Weddings Web site. Here are a few of them:

• Give tree donation certificates or saplings as wedding favors.
  Use an online calculator to determine how many trees must be planted to neutralize the carbon emissions resulting from wedding guests’ travel or your honeymoon trip. Then donate to an organization that will plant the trees on your guests’ behalf, or give each guest a tree-in-a-box to plant in commemoration of your wedding.

• Choose wedding apparel made of sustainable fabrics or reuse garments that have been lovingly worn.
  A wedding gown made of luxurious hemp satin and a groom’s shirt made of fine organic cotton are produced without pesticides and without the petroleum used to manufacture synthetic textiles. Hemp is a naturally pest-resistant plant that also replenishes the earth. Organic cotton is grown without the pesticides used on non-organic cotton, the most heavily sprayed field crop on the planet (a third of a pound of pesticide is used for every pound of cotton produced!). Another earth-friendly option is to rent or purchase previously worn wedding apparel, especially from charity organizations.

• Serve a vegetarian menu at your reception, preferably with locally grown organic produce.
  You’ll be using the earth’s resources efficiently as well as minimizing air pollution and pesticide use. According to Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth, each pound of grain feeds almost five times as many people if eaten directly than it does when cycled through cattle and turned into beef. Authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich calculate that a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 pounds of water to produce, compared to just 60 pounds of water for a pound of wheat. Serving local produce rather than food transported from thousands of miles away produces fewer air pollutants and consumes less fossil fuel – and if it’s organic, even better because you’ll be helping to reduce the use of toxic pesticides.

• Avoid serving farmed salmon.
  If you decide to serve fish at your reception, make sure that it is wild rather than farm-raised. From the time it is a “small fry,” a farmed salmon is often dosed with vaccines, antibiotics and pesticides, as well as being given a steady diet of synthetic pigment to help create its appealing pink hue. A study published in the journal Science warned that farmed salmon may contain as many as fourteen cancer-causing chemicals. Also, according to authors Linda Riebel and Ken Jacobsen in Eating to Save the Earth, salmon are carnivorous animals that may be fed as many as three pounds of ocean-caught fish in their short lifetimes to produce each pound of salmon.

Green weddings also provide the opportunity to build awareness in the people attending. While a recent Gallup Poll indicated that a majority of Americans support the environmental movement and take action by recycling and by reducing their use of power and water, some may feel that doing what’s right for the environment is more of a sacrifice than a pleasure. A wedding can be an inspiring example of the elegant possibilities of green living. It may be the first time many guests will experience the delicious pleasures of organic cuisine or the lustrous beauty of a natural hemp and silk wedding gown. What a wonderful way for them to learn about earth-friendly delights, in an environment of love and joy!

Environmentally and socially conscious weddings can also provide a significant economic boost to providers of green products and services. The wedding industry is flourishing. A recent survey of American brides conducted by the Fairchild Bridal Group indicated that the average cost of a wedding is now around $25,000, plus thousands more in indirect costs such as gifts and travel. In the U.S., with 2.5 million weddings annually, the wedding industry has grown to a $70 billion a year business. That’s a whole lot of that other kind of “green!” And this doesn’t even take into account many of the dollars spent on the growing number of same-sex weddings and commitment celebrations. In a 2004 Forbes.com article , it was estimated that the legalization of gay marriage would bring a $16.8 billion windfall to the U.S. wedding industry! It has been said that “consumers vote with their wallets,” so the more of these billions that are spent on earth-friendly products and services, the more inclined businesses will be to provide a larger variety of them.

As you can see, there are many reasons for planning a green wedding, but you don’t need to stress out about incorporating green perfection into every detail of your wedding plans. Sometimes cost and convenience will be deciding factors in the choices you make. The important thing is to consider the options, and do your best to incorporate as many earth-friendly practices into your planning as is practical for you. The result will be a celebration of love that encircles not only yourselves, your family and friends, but also reaches out to the entire Earth.