Faye and David got married at Folly Farm near Bristol in April this year and did all they could to make the wedding as local and low carbon as possible.

With hay bales and bunting, tipis and homemade lanterns, and Somerset cider and cheese, this is a proper (and very stylish) English country wedding.

Read all about Faye and David’s special day

Katie

I gave an interview a month or two ago with US-based Environmental Protection magazine and the article is now out.

As well as my little bit it includes some useful tips and stats from The Green Bride Guide’s Kate Harrison and Ashley Paz of Vera Green Weddings.

Thank you to Christina Miralla for a fab feature – read the article here: Reduce your carbon footprint at the altar

Katie

Of course, the greenest honeymoon would be to stay local and with a bit of imagination, create a beautiful, fun and magical honeymoon that is also kind to the planet. Staycations are all the rage and if you get the weather right, you can have a cheap and guilt free holiday in your own country.

However, some of us (especially those living in cold climates) dream longingly of a sun-kissed beach in an exotic country. But we’re reluctant to call us ourselves “environmentally conscious” while at the same time travelling half way across the planet and (let’s face it) contributing a very dirty carbon footprint.

It’s an ethical dilemma. So what’s an eco girl to do to balance both of these desires?

Let’s face it. Some of us will travel on planes around the globe for our honeymoons and it’s pointless to spend the whole time feeling guilty. My own honeymoon spanned the UK, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, and now in our jobs as The Honeymoon Testers, we’re travelling around the world for six months. This definitely does tug at my environmental conscience but I still, perhaps ironically, think of myself as someone who cares about the future of our planet.

I know I’m not the only one with this moral predicament. Our generation longs to be global citizens, but nobody wants to create more damage to the planet than is necessary. Rather than be hypocrites and tell you to stay at home, we’ve been gleaning ideas to share with other honeymooners with itchy feet.

By any means, these actions don’t cancel out your globe-trotting altogether, but here are some small and easy tips that you can do to reduce your impact without spending every second worrying about it.

Choose your holiday wisely

Start with the end in mind and support destinations that use renewable power, have community programmes and implement relevant environmental policies (not just the one about reusing your bath towels). This includes water usage, waste disposal and building materials.

Most importantly find places that are creating jobs and wealth in their communities including sharing clean water and sanitation for local people. Do employees get paid fairly, or are they reliant on tips to earn a living wage? Does your resort benefit the community or is an oasis of wealth and privilege amongst grinding poverty?

Holidays involving animals should have ethical conservation policies as well as being respectful to preserving environments for animals to live in the wild. We’ve heard horror stories about dolphins being kept at pets in resort pools (and committing suicide), tourists offered photo opportunities with toothless and chained tigers, and performing elephants trained with violence and intimidation. Don’t give these places your money and contribute to the problem. Eco-tourism can be profitable and beneficial so spread the word about inspiring enterprises.

Air conditioning

Every hotel and resort I’ve been to cranks the air-conditioning to nipple-popping levels, making the contrast to outside even more unbearable. Make sure you turn it off whenever you leave the room, and check back after breakfast to ensure that the housekeeper hasn’t turned it back on to run all day.

If you have good mosquito nets, consider not using the AC all night and open a window instead. On our honeymoon in Indonesia, we lived in a cabin on stilts in the water and the warm ocean breeze was our air-con.

Bottled drinks

In many developing countries bottled water is still a necessity, and you could get seriously sick from drinking the tap water. In these cases find the most local brand, buy the biggest bottles so you don’t go through hundreds of the smaller ones and dispose of them carefully. Ask your hotel if they recycle.

What’s better, glass or plastic? In most countries, glass is more easily recycled and you’re more likely to see plastic trashing beaches and littering oceans.

If the chances of getting sick are slim, filter and boil your own water using tablets, special drinking straws and filtering water bottles.

Many countries such as Singapore and Mauritius have tap water that is absolutely fine to drink so always ask and don’t be paranoid, but use the filtering options mentioned if you’re worried. Fill up your reusable water bottles in the morning to use all day.

A great alternative to bottled drinks are fresh green coconuts served straight off the tree. Coconut water is extremely good for you, tasty and is nature’s version of sugary energy drinks. The coconut shells are biodegradable and in some countries are used as a fuel source. It’s also money that’s going straight back into the local economy, as they grow wild and aren’t owned by a global bottling company that gives a pittance profit margin.

Food and drink

Going meat-free on honeymoon will give you a much better chance of avoiding food poisoning or sickness. Many countries have low standards around battery farms or humane slaughtering practices, so even if you aren’t vegetarian or vegan, consider doing it for your honeymoon.

Take the opportunity to try local beers and wines where possible, and talk to the chef about where and how fish and vegetables are sourced.

Tropical countries have an abundance of fresh fruit, so take advantage of supporting the local economy and as long as it has a peel (pineapple, mango, passion fruit, bananas etc) then it’s almost always safe to eat.

Find your own off-set

There are definitely controversies around flight off-set schemes, so find one that feels right for you. You may want to support a local regeneration programme, a global organisation that plants trees or an animal conservation charity instead.

Considering doing some charity work with the local economy, donating time, money or materials such as pens and books to local schools.

You can ask your wedding guests to donate to the community in lieu of a wedding present, or give you give vouchers for low impact activities such as bike tours or massages.

Spend your money ethically and avoid illegal DVDs (it can support crime), don’t take home shells or coral, don’t buy products made with plastic, endangered or rare materials and buy locally made, sustainably produced souvenirs such as beaded jewellery or woven handicrafts.

Of course, there are many other small actions you can take that are probably second nature to you. Always pick up your trash (but I know you do that anyway!), switch off lights, don’t charge electronics unnecessarily and reuse your beach and bath towels.

You could spend the whole honeymoon debating the merits and relative damage of each activity, but you are there to enjoy yourself and live this wonderful time together according to your values and principles. Do what you can and try to benefit each place in some way.

Lastly, travelling the planet and meeting other cultures is a wonderful and life-enriching thing, and wouldn’t it be great if our children can do it (relatively) guilt-free? There will be better ways to travel in the future if we demand it, using renewable sources of energy to power our planes (hey, maybe even teleportation) so always support organisations that are paving the way so it becomes unacceptable (and unprofitable) for the holiday industry to exploit the natural resources of our beautiful planet.

Just being conscious about your every day actions will give you plenty of ideas that you can share with others too. It’s hard to get this 100% right, so enjoy your honeymoon as much as possible, and spread love as you go – for each other and for planet Earth.

…

Denise Duffield-Thomas is a blogger, writer and speaker who is currently travelling the world with her husband Mark as “The Honeymoon Testers”, reviewing the best wedding and honeymoon destinations on behalf of travel company Runaway Bride and Groom.

The dilemma is dividing us into two camps – those whose priority is the environment and local communities, and those for whom issues of social justice – human rights and working conditions – remain at the top of the list. 

Our current Ethical Weddings poll asks whether, when having to choose between the two, fair trade or local produce would feature most on your wedding menu.

I’ve also just received the latest copy of Ethical Consumer and the editorial tells how at their London conference on ethical shopping last December, one of the main areas of disagreement  was around just this issue:

‘the degree to which localism - or the localisation of supply chains – would dominate.  Would pressure on carbon emissions see transport reduced to such a degree that our products didn’t travel so far?

Or would the fair and/or ethical trade movement grow to dominate a reformed international trading system which looks much like the one we have now?‘

The Times adds more confusion to the issue with its recent ‘Get off your food miles guilt trip’ article claiming that the  ’local over long-haul’ choice is not even the greenest one.  It points out that in most cases the greatest carbon emissions come from the production of a food product, not its transport. 

So ‘tomatoes grown in the natural heat of Spain have less “global warming potential”… than out-of-season British tomatoes grown in heated greenhouses’ and New Zealand lamb produces fewer carbon emissions than British lamb as the British rearing process uses more electricity and fertiliser. 

It concludes that the – extremely complex – “life cycle assessment” (LCA) of a product is the only way we can approach some kind of answer.

But where does that leave us, trying to plan a more ethical wedding – one that takes into consideration the environmental and social issues? Can we have our wedding cake (made with half fair trade, half locally-sourced ingredients) and eat it too?

Share your thoughts with us in the Ethical Weddings Forum.

Take care,

Katie
For the latest ethical wedding tips, chat, articles and more, free to your inbox, sign up to the monthly Ethical Weddings Newsletter

We decided for this holiday we’d go the low carbon route again but a bit further this time (last year was via Eurostar and TGV to the Loire Valley) and took the train all the way from Worthing in West Sussex to Girona in northeast Spain. 

The tempting sleeper cabin option was rejected due to lack of funds so on the downside we did spend most of 2 days making the journey there and back but on the upside got to see some gorgeous countryside and coastal beauty spots as we sped along.

On the way down we broke our journey at Perpignan staying at a stylish B&B called ‘le crocodile rouge’.   

Stylish did not mean snooty, I’m pleased to report, as our extremely friendly hosts invited us to share dessert with the family and then spend a pleasant evening chatting about this and that (chance to use my French!), including ethical weddings and responsible travel!

Travelling through France and Spain by train allowed us many opportunities as we sat by the window to pick out potential future holiday spots that we never would have seen had we gone by plane and it struck us what a wonderful honeymoon it would make – a couple of hours on the train then a few nights at the first destination that takes your fancy, then on to the next, checking in at different places on your return journey.

Before going to university, everyone was off interrailing around Europe for the summer, now air fares are so cheap it’s all about jetting around the world.  Maybe your honeymoon could be a good time to think about reliving your youth and dusting off that interrail pass again for a break at a more leisurely pace!

If you’ve been on a great rail journey for your honeymoon we’d love to hear about it.  Coming soon…we’ll have the Man in Seat 61′s honeymoon by rail tale for you, so watch this space!

Katie
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The solvents used in dry cleaning sadly aren’t so great for the environment – but when you’re dealing with a posh frock, you often don’t have a lot of choice…until now!

Trend spotting site, Springwise, has found Fred Butler, who ‘…uses a new technology that replaces solvents like perchloroethylene with carbon dioxide. Their method works by placing clothes or other textiles in a cleansing machine, removing the air and letting CO2 fill the vacuum.”

“High pressure combined with bio-degradable cleansers ensures dirt particles are removed from fabric. The carbon dioxide used is a by-product of industrial processes and once a cycle has been completed, 98% of the carbon dioxide is filtered and reused.’

Find out more at Springwise and get your dress dry cleaned with a clean conscience!

Tequila Sunrise video This will be my last post for a week or two as we’re off on our holidays taking the train south in search of Spanish sun – see you in September!

Take care,

Katie

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Devil Times Five aka People Toys Look release

Another week and another inbox full of questions from journalists wanting to get the lowdown on the growing interest in ethical and green weddings.

One of the questions I get asked most of all – and one you may well be asking yourself if you have just come across the concept of ethical weddings – is:

“Can one day really make a difference?”

According to The Independent it can. They reported that Liz Hurley’s wedding: “…has produced a carbon footprint so large that it would take the average British couple more than 10 years to contribute as much to heating up the planet as she and Arun Nayar have done in little over a week. It would take a typical Indian couple a massive 123 years.”

Hmmm…! But we’re talking about making a positive difference. And it is a valid question. In the context of global warming, cities being ravaged by fire or floods, famine and drought, a wedding day could seem a little insignificant.

However, there are a number of reasons for not giving up on the whole idea before you’ve even started.

You may, like us, feel that you want your wedding to be a cause of celebration for everyone, that you don’t want people or the planet to suffer for your perfect day. So you choose fair trade products, support local suppliers, source organic fabrics, and make your own invites on recycled paper.

You will probably see this day as a new beginning, a chance to start as you mean to go on in your green and ethical married life (especially if you have a green gift list!).

If these values are already engrained in your day-to-day life, why would you have your wedding day any other way? Wouldn’t you rather your wedding day reflected who you are rather than tradition and convention dictating the day?

And of course you shouldn’t forget about your lovely guests either. This celebration, potentially the biggest party of your life, is a great chance to show your friends and family that a green lifestyle isn’t just about being a ‘hippy’ and that there are lots of great eco and ethical options out there in everything from fashion to food. And if they tell their friends and they tell their friends etc. etc…. you get the picture!

Most of all, keep asking questions. Even if your venue isn’t completely eco for your day, chances are your questions about energy efficiency and locally sourced produce will plant a seed that bears fruit for another couple’s wedding. And if this spreads throughout the huge wedding industry, well, one day will certainly have made a difference!

I can’t help thinking of Edmund Burke’s quote: “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little”

Or to put it in the words of one notorious famous trying to be green grocer: “Every little helps”!

Katie
For the latest ethical wedding tips, chat, articles and more, free to your inbox, sign up to the monthly Ethical Weddings Newsletter here

“We plan to sign the legal marriage register the day before our wedding, so that we can hold our ceremony and reception wherever we want and write our own vows.

I love the idea of being able to marry somewhere close to home and having space to invite everyone! Holding an unlicensed ceremony and a reception in a marquee also seems to make the day a lot cheaper. Important for us – we are saving money every month to make sure we can invite all our friends.

I also thought a field and a marquee would be simpler to book than a licensed building with catering and all the trimmings. But there I was mistaken!

Considering we live in an area full of farms and parks, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a field to hold a wedding on. Our first choice venue, the cricket field at a local school, has fallen through because the bursar of the school says he thinks it will be too much hassle. I guess I can understand his concerns… a party for 200 people is sure to be a noisy and busy event. But we do need to find SOMEWHERE to hold the wedding!

Our next choice is a field belonging to a local Christian activity centre for disadvantaged children. I am keen to hire this field as it is very close to the village where we both grew up – walking distance for many family and friends, so will involve fewer carbon-greedy taxis at the end of the party.

I would quite like to support the activity centre by hiring their field. They provide a really good service to local children’s groups and it would be nice to give them our business.

They are keen to help us to hold our wedding and may even be able to provide the marquee. However, we plan to hold a humanist ceremony and they have asked this week whether our ceremony will conflict with their Christian principles.

We want to hold a humanist ceremony so that we can write our own vows and involve our families in just the way we want to. I’m hoping we can write a ceremony that won’t conflict with anyone’s beliefs – we will have guests at our wedding of different religions and of no religion, and I think that a humanist ceremony could fit the bill.

It’s going to be an interesting task writing vows and readings that will encompass everyone’s ideas… but I think it will mean we have a very nice ceremony in the end!

So, our next job is to write our ceremony and show it to the owner of the activity centre. The question is… what do we want to say to each other when we make our vows??”

Thank you, Jenny. Look forward to hearing how the vow writing goes!

Happy planning!

Katie

For the latest ethical wedding tips, chat, articles and more, free to your inbox, sign up to the monthly Ethical Weddings Newsletter

Ahead of the publication of a major UN report on Climate Change on Friday, they are looking to put together a selection of interesting stories about what individuals are doing to save the enviroment.

If you are celebrating your ethical wedding this weekend or in the next few weeks,
they would really love to have a chat with you!

For more information, contact Karen Chan on 020 7557 2782 or at karen.chan@bbc.co.uk

It made me laugh, it’s quite tongue in cheek, but I guess it does answer that question you get sometimes: how can a wedding not be eco / green / ethical?

Have a read – and a chuckle!

Take care,

Katie
ethicalweddings.com