I found them when I was looking for some ethical new baby gift cards for Makes a Change, but I’m posting it here as there are gorgeous cards for the bride and groom

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if you’re off to a wedding, and also well priced packs which can be used as Save the Date, Invitations and Thank you cards for your own wedding.

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www.justcardsdirect.co.uk

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I don’t like the idea of asking people for money as it seems a bit odd, so in the end we went for a list of grow-your-own goodies from Harrod Horticultural who have been really helpful.

We also talked to Manda Wilderness about projects that they would like supporting, and they decided that they would love to have donations towards buying desks and chairs for the schools that they’re building with the community.  Guests seem to really like this and it’s so exciting feeling that we can make a tangible difference to a big project.

Another good place for ethical wedding (or other) gifts is the Good Gift Guide.  I’ve used this for general gifts and it’s brilliant!  People really want to give to you at weddings and rather than getting stuff I don’t need for the sake of it, what a great opportunity to support something I believe in.

I would recommend, if you go down this route, to choose specific things for  a charity rather than, say, “please make donations to the NSPCC” or whichever charity you choose.  Guests like to know where their money is going, which is why supporting a specific Manda project, or buying a “Good Gift” works so well.

If you love cats, maybe a donation to a new cat housing area for your local cat sanctuary is a good idea.  If it’s the Rainforest you want to save, suggest specific amounts to guests – for instance Rainforest Concern convert a £25 donation to half an acre of rainforest saved which is much nicer for the guest than a random donation to a large, faceless charity pot.

Philip and I met in 2007 and he asked me to marry him in December last year.

Philip is an eco consultant whose last big project was installing solar panels at an eco lodge in Mozambique (which then won the best small hotel in the world awards!!) – www.mandawilderness.org.

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I run an organic and fair trade baby and children’s clothes, washable nappies, eco friendly toys etc store called Makes a Change.  We live and work a very eco lifestyle and so naturally we wanted to make our wedding as low-impact on the environment and as beneficial to the people who will be involved in suppliying us as possible.

The flowers

Depth Charge trailer This weekend was spent trying to tie down the last of the details!  We’re having a marquee in the garden, after the wedding, and I’ve been trying to grow sweet peas to use as table decorations.  Unfortunately I’ve not really got a green thumb so they’re not doing brilliantly, but have the back up of a great supplier called The Organic Flower Company which can be found at www.tofc.co.uk.

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They will be doing the bridal bouquets, button holes and also decorating our cake for us – which we eventually found after lots of searching for ethical wedding cake suppliers.  A lovely lady called Joy, of www.joyofcakes.co.uk, is making us a cake from free range eggs, organic ingredients and fair trade dried fruit and sugar.  We asked for a simple, white iced cake and the organic flowers will just finish it off beautifully.

The caterers

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We’ve found that so many people are willing to change details of their standard products to fit in with our ethics – you just need to ask.  Joy is a great example.  She’d been wanting to “go ethical” and just needed someone to ask her to do it.   Another example is our lovely caterers, Claire and Nigel of Claire’s Country Catering.  We’re having a hog roast for a semi-formal wedding breakfast.  They were pleased when we insisted on a locally produced, organic, free range hog as they say that it will cook much better than the horrifically grown caged pig that is normally used.  Because the pig is able to move around freely, and grow naturally, it has more fat through the meat making it beautifully tender and delicious.  Ethical and  nicer!  Bonus!

Claire and Nigel are also going to be supplying locally produced, organic salads and accompanyments to our hog roast for very little extra cost which is important as we are on a tight budget.

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The bridesmaids

My main task this weekend was the bridesmaid dress fittings.  My oldest bridesmaid, 13 year old Natasha, is my Fiance’s niece who lives abroad, so getting a dress fitted was always going to be a challenge.  I asked her to choose a dress that she liked, which she could wear again, as we weren’t going to be able to get one fitted with eco fabrics.  She chose a lovely, rich blue which then became the colour theme for the wedding.

We then bought two sashes in a matching fabric, and fortunately Philip’s mother knows one end of a sewing machine from another and has run up stunning little dresses for my other two bridesmaids (8 years old) in ivory coloured veggie silk and hemp with organic cotton lining (from Conscious Elegance) and the sashes will just pull the colours together.  Even though the fabric cost was higher than non-ethical versions, the two dresses came to about half the cost of just one dress from a wedding dress store – or even high street department store!

This is just some of the examples of how we’ve tried to buy ethical versions of regular things needed for every wedding.  It’s just an extension of how we buy everything: 1) Do we actually need it? and 2) is there an ethical version of it?  I hope it gives you some inspiration.

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