Today we’re bringing you a new way to donate your dress – or to buy a pre-loved wedding gown and benefit not just the planet but its people too.

The Brides Project accepts gown donations from all over the USA, and then sells them at under half the retail costs, with all proceeds going to the Cancer Support Community (CSC).

The CSC provides free services to adults, teens and children whose lives have been affected by cancer.

The Brides Project has collected many beautiful bridal gowns thanks to the generosity of other brides and bridal salon owners who want to make a difference in the lives of individuals who have been touched by cancer.

Launch of The Brides Project salon on 17 September

Ann Arbor CSC is sponsoring the first Brides Project salon at 208 West Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The store will offer brides a selection of gently used or new dresses which have been donated to CSC. It is also the Midwest donation point for Brides Against Breast Cancer.

All are welcome at the Grand Opening on Saturday 17 September.

How do I donate my dress?

Dress donations are accepted from anywhere in the US and anyone can purchase the gowns. For more information, please email: info@thebridesproject.org or call 734.418.3332.

Find out more

Cancer Support Community of Ann Arbor

The Brides Project (USA)

The Brides Project (Canada)

Brides Against Breast Cancer

All links open in a new window

Happy donating!

Katie

Pens (or iphones or other mobiley things that do everything but especially coordinate your diary) at the ready please as we have 2 green wedding events coming up in the next few weeks.

Trafford Hall Wedding Fayre

First, our fantastic new supplier, the environmentally friendly Trafford Hall in Cheshire is holding its first ever Wedding Fayre on Thursday 8 September from 5.30pm to 9pm.

Admission is free and you’ll even get a free drink on arrival.

This is your chance to view the venue set up for a wedding ceremony and wedding breakfast. Meet the wedding team and wedding suppliers.

Find out more about Trafford Hall and its first Wedding Fayre

Chiceco Wedding Dress Sale

The second event is a great chance to pick up a pre-loved, once-worn wedding gown to see you up the aisle in uber eco style.

The Chiceco Wedding Dress Sale takes place on Sunday 18 September in North London and includes dresses from well-known designers such as Oscar de la Renta, Suzanne Neville and Caroline Castigliano.

Find out more about the Chiceco Wedding Dress Sale and register for an appointment

If you make it along to one or both of these events, do let us know, we’d love to hear how they go.

Katie

There are so many charity shops with bridal departments just begging for your dress, you know it’s going to a good home – and a good cause.

But what if you want it to go direct to another bride? A bride who perhaps wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford to buy the wedding dress of her dreams.

This was the challenge set for us by one bride who got married back in 2006.  She said:

I heard on the radio some years ago about a charity that takes pre-worn wedding dresses overseas to lend them to women who are marrying but cannot afford a dress. I have been searching in vain to find out who this organisation is so I can donate my dress so someone else can get the pleasure and use out of it but so far no luck ! I really hope you can help.

We got on the case.  And this is what we came up with:

1. Westminster Weddings

Back in 2009, we did a blog post about an organisation in Kenya that takes donated dresses from the UK and hires them out at affordable rates using the income to fund an orphanage:

“They rely on generous brides in the UK donating wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses which can then be hired out from a special shop in the grounds of the Home. 

“Not only does this help to raise funds for the Home it also provides an affordable option for locals trying to plan the wedding of their dreams.”

• Find out more about Westminster Weddings

2. Jireh Women

In 2010, 20 Scottish brides donated their wedding dresses to brides in Uganda.

Janice Jack from Edinburgh read about the plight of women in war-torn Uganda and got in touch with the charity Jireh Women to see how she could help. She said:

“The devastation caused in these girls’ lives is the main reason why we want to send them out dresses, not just because it is a poor country.

“It’s really to say ‘you deserve better’ – a wedding day is a new start for them.”

• Read more about Edinburgh brides to donate wedding dresses to Africa

If you’re interested in donating your dress, take a look at the Jireh Women website where it says:

“Thank you to everyone who so generously donated their wedding dresses to Jireh Women. We have now collected all the dresses and shipped them off to Uganda. 

“The ladies are so excited and are busy preparing the ‘hire shop’. They currently have 5 brides to be on a waiting list to hire them. You have made a difference!”

Email carol@jirehwomen.co.uk or tel: 01257 266155 or 07889 757045

Photo courtesy of Becky Matthews – see more of Becky’s fantastic photos of the Ugandan weddings

3. Zambia brides

The next venture we stumbled across is run by Berkshire-based Abi Parker. Abi has set up a wedding dress hire shop in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.

It offers employment for local women and provides a great service for women hoping to be married in a proper wedding dress.

The fee for hiring a dress will help fund Abi’s Aids awareness project, A.S.A.P Africa, as well as a local training scheme which teaches former prostitutes skills to help them to earn an income.

• Find out more including how to get in touch with Abi on the Ribbons and Pearls website

4. The Liberian Wedding Dress Project

Reverend Louise R Collins and Liberian Ambassador Alpha Bird Collins launched The Liberian Wedding Dress Project on their own wedding day.

The groom wanted to take pre-loved wedding gowns to his war-torn homeland – where wedding dresses can cost up to a year’s wages – and his bride was more than happy to support him in his quest.

They say: “Basically the idea is we take the dresses to Liberia where our local partners will loan them out to Liberian brides, for a small charge to cover cleaning and so on.”

Dresses can be dropped off at St Cuthbert’s Church, on Barnsley Road, any Sunday morning, and donations can be made payable to Action Love Liberia and sent to St Cuthbert’s Vicarage, 7 Horndean Road, Sheffield, S5 6UJ.

Call Louise and Alpha on 0114 261 1605 for more information.

• Read Groom’s wedding dresses caused bit of an ‘I do’ in the Sheffield Telegraph

5. Blessed Brides

This project of the Ummah Welfare Trust (UWT) charity takes unwanted or unused wedding dresses to brides in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan who cannot afford the luxuries of a wedding day.

The Trust identifies the regions where assistance is most needed. They say:

“Our team work closely with UWT to verify the extent of need for each case. If financial need is greater then we will endeavour to sell your bridal dress to specifically fund the wedding. Otherwise the bridal dress will be presented to the bride. Ultimately you will have contributed towards the completion of a successful wedding.

“Furthermore we encourage the new bride to share the blessings and pass on dresses to others in need. In this case, your donation could be making not one, but many dreams come true!”

• Find out more about Blessed Brides

If you know of a project that donates pre-loved wedding dresses to women who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford one (perhaps even here in the UK?) please add details in the comment box below.

Katie

Ethical bridalwear designer, Lucy Tammam is putting on an eco-couture catwalk show at the Champagne Bar at St Pancras International Train Station next Friday 21 January.

Sustainable fashion and transport come together!

RSVP to info@tammam.co.uk and quote ‘Ethical Weddings’ to join the guest list.

Be there at 8.30am ready for the show at 9am.

Katie

I was saddened to read about the Irish bride who “bagged herself a bargain” on EBay by buying a €6 brand new wedding dress from China.

In these tight times, I can understand how brides might think this is a fantastic idea. Anything to do with weddings has an overinflated price-tag, especially wedding dresses but I’m asking everyone to think about the true cost of this “bargain”.

When I was planning my wedding last year, I just couldn’t justify spending thousands on a dress that was essentially the most expensive cost-per-wear item I’d ever own.

I was briefly tempted by a Google ad boasting suspiciously cheap, fully customised wedding dresses, knock-off designer dresses for a fraction of the cost. When I saw the dresses were made in China, I was immediately turned off.

The internet and particularly EBay has allowed smaller, family-run textile companies to sell their products direct to the consumer all over the world. Nobody can deny that this is a good thing, as long as they can make a good living out of it.

Chinese cottage industry?

The €6 wedding dress isn’t made by some enterprising Chinese granny, building an EBay empire with a Singer machine and her web savvy grandchildren. More than likely, the average cheap Chinese wedding dress is made by the human equivalent of a battery hen, in crowded and sometimes dangerous conditions, receiving little pay, working extremely long hours and enduring inhumane conditions (to the point of prohibited bathroom breaks).

Picture the misery and suffering that goes into that beautiful dress, and the contrast of the happy bride thrilled about her unbelievable bargain is a little grotesque.

It is unbelievable, because the numbers don’t work. How can a company (even a Chinese one) pay overheads, advertising and material costs, let alone pay a fair and decent wage to the people making these dresses, and still make a worthwhile profit? The only way to make that work is through exploitation, pure and simple.

Surely it can’t be that bad? Am I exaggerating? The problem is, there’s no way to tell.

Spotlight on the consumer giants

Multi-national giants like Nike and Primark are always under a lot of scrutiny about their Chinese made clothes. Recently they’ve spent a lot of time and money improving their factories. They may not be perfect, but they are under pressure to provide a living wage, ensuring basic health and safety and rejecting child and slave labour in their supply chain.

All this regulation and inspection and even they can’t get it right all the time. We always hear about violations and scandals. They have to constantly monitor every factory, supplier and outsourcer, because all too often there are people willing to exploit others in the name of a (slightly) greater profit. Not even Primark, with its huge economies of scale and reputation for cheap clothes would see the economic viability (or have the audacity) to sell a €6 wedding dress.

Ethical standards for all

If these huge companies with reputations to protect get it wrong, imagine what some ruthless “entrepreneur” with a couple of sewing machines and a website will try tp get away with. Just because these companies are faceless, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held to ethical standards.

Do you think they dispose of their textile waste carefully and care about where they source their materials? Do you think their employees can take a sick day, work in a safe environment or have the luxury to feel a glowing sense of satisfaction that they are working to create someone’s dream wedding dress?

Cutting wedding costs – ethically

Nobody can deny that weddings cost too much. If you’re on a tight wedding budget, consider buying a pre-loved dress on EBay (like I did), go vintage, borrow or hire one, or find an ethical supplier.

Alternatively, find an organisation like Barnardo’s who sell brand new, samples, seconds and pre-loved wedding dresses through their special bridal shops.

Profits help fund their work looking after vulnerable and exploited children. I love what they do (I even used to work for them) and they have some absolutely incredible wedding dresses.  Turn your happily ever after into a chance to do good for a child’s future. How’s that for a wedding dress enriched in good karma?

The demand for bargain wedding dresses will always be there, but we’re better than that, we can’t pretend that it’s fair or right. We have the luxury to choose to only support ethical suppliers.

Ladies, don’t be tempted and do the right thing. There is just nothing pretty or romantic about a €6 wedding dress.

Denise

Denise is a travel blogger, Law of Attraction and personal development coach and a public speaker. She is currently travelling around the world with her husband Mark as winners of the Ultimate Job competition. Follow their adventure at www.thehoneymoontesters.com

• Should they sell it? If so how and where?
• Should they give it away? Where can it do most good?
• Should they have it re-fashioned into a wearable, everyday dress?
• Or should they stash it away ready for a future descendant with a passion for vintage?

On Ethical Weddings we have bridalwear suppliers who can re-fashion a gown or sell on a pre-loved dress but we wanted to hear from you too.

What did you do or what do you plan to do with your well-loved wedding gown?

Here are a few of the top tips we received:

Denée, Founder of She Just Got Married said:

“Share the Love….save the planet. Sell it to a bride-to-be looking to save on her wedding while allowing the newlywed to recoup a little of her own investment. And why pay to post an ad to sell your gently loved items when there is no charge at “She Just Got Married.”

Anja said:

“I got my David Fielden dress in a sample sale so at fraction of original price (was over 2k!) and has been worn many times by models on the catwalk apparently. Fits me perfectly so no need for alterations – bonus.

It is a a bit unusual in that it’s a short dress in raw silk. I am planning on having it dyed (maybe purple!) along with my shoes, after the wedding so I can wear it again at a posh do etc. I had wanted to get one from Oxfam but I really didn’t like any of the ones they had unfortunately.”

Kristen said:

“Donate your wedding dress to help an African bride have a very special day.  Jireh Women is a Christian organisation which exists to support women living in poverty around the world: www.jirehwomen.org

They’re currently planning on setting up wedding dress hire shops in Kitgum and Kampala in Uganda, which will bring a sustainable income to some of their partners and give Ugandan brides the chance to buy a beautiful dress they can afford. Email carol@jirehwomen.org or tel: 01257 266155 or 07947 456129”

If these tips have inspired you, why not send in your own top tips?

Read more ethical wedding top tips.

Katie

It was an amazing and beautiful day. The wedding party began to arrive the day before, and we put the finishing touches to the decorations and food that could be done in advance. In the evening, we had a small family/wedding party celebration, and then Mike and our best man went to stay the night with friends.

The wedding day began with grey skies and a forecast of rain… but as we started preparing, the clouds began to clear, and the day turned hot and sunny!

Mike, his family and the ushers set about decorating the village hall for the reception with pot plants, a photo montage of silly pictures of us as kids, our lovely red and blue fairtrade balloons and the bunting we borrowed.

Here come the girls

Meanwhile, my bridesmaids and I spent the morning making sure the right decorations went to the right venue, and getting pretty!

They had all bought/ brought their own dresses after I’d given them a colour sample, to make sure they all got a dress they liked and that suited them, so it was quite exciting to see all the dresses together.

They looked fantastic together, each in a slightly different shade of cherry red, it was lovely. To coordinate their outfits we had bought them each a ‘vegetable ivory’ pendant from DeMEC, who sell beautiful fairtrade jewellery, and I made them some little hair fascinators to wear.

I’d had to buy some new makeup from BBoheme since I don’t have very much, but other than that we just used what we already had, plus a bit of swapping and sharing.

And soon it was time to head over to the village hall, once the men were safely out of the way over at the church (we didn’t want to spoil the surprise of seeing one another in wedding clothes before the ceremony).

Green groom in vintage brown

Mike found his suit on Ebay, an awesome brown vintage 1970s suit, complete with flares, which suits him perfectly. Coupled with a really smart shirt and cherry red tie, both found in charity shops, he looked amazing. The ushers had brought their own suits, but we gave them coordinating ties and buttonholes.

Oxfam Bridal to the rescue

I found my dress in Oxfam Bridal in Leicester, the first bridal shop I went in (though I went in another afterwards, just to make sure!). It was beautiful, a vintage style dress with a simple lacy overlay on it, for which I borrowed an underskirt from a recently married friend.

I know I’ve gone on and on about Oxfam Bridal, but I was so impressed I’m going to recommend it again! And I managed to find some shoes in the exact same style as the dress somehow on Oxfam’s online shop. Pretty fortunate!

I wore the dress with an antique lace veil that has been in Mike’s family for generations, which was really special. I also managed to find this pretty necklace in a charity shop too. So we had fun putting the outfits together!

I’ll post again soon on the rest of the day,

Love, Helen

Dawn has featured in many national magazines such as InStyle, Real Simple, Family Circle, In Touch and Life and Style, and her “How-To” book is out this autumn, filled with affordable style advice and quick and easy tips.

With her keen sense of fashion and her ability to think out of the “fashion box”, Dawn has put together some top tips on how to go green when dressing for a wedding.

• Go vintage – it is super stylish and the prices won’t break the bank, plus you will have a truly unique wedding dress.
• Every day new online shops are popping up selling pre-owned wedding gowns, and the best part is many of them are couture selling for half the price. (Ed: See Ethical Weddings supplier, Swoon Wedding Gowns, for example)
• Tailor your mum’s wedding dress – with so much material on a wedding dress, it is a simple matter to have a tailor or dressmaker re-cut and re-design it to match your individual style.
• If you are buying a new dress look for one fashioned from sustainable fabrics such as organic cotton, linen and silk (go for peace silk).
• Let your bridesmaids pick a dress they can wear again – just let them know the colour you like, and leave them to choose the style that suits them best.
• Accessorize with a unique recycled purse and /or jewellery.
• There are many dyes now that are created with a vegetable base so just ask when dyeing your shoes.
• If you have to have matching bridesmaids dresses perhaps the bridesmaids’ gift to you could be to donate the dress to a charity such as the Glass Slipper Project after the event.
• Choose conflict-free diamonds.

Thank you for those great tips Dawn! And good luck to our readers with your green wedding style – why not tell us your top green wedding tips?

Katie

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.

The General Died at Dawn movie

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

• buy Breaking Away

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.

The Ruins move

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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