Here’s how it goes…

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the coming together of marriage and environmentalism. Do you, reader, take this, the Ecologist, to be your guide to environmentally friendly weddings…

Everyone loves a wedding. Blushing bride, dashing groom, flowing dress, scented bouquet, singing choir, cooing turtledoves, whinnying horses…

All a bit dated, isn’t it? With the decline in organised religion and the disintegration of traditional notions of family, old-school is old hat when it comes to tying the knot these days.

Truly white weddings are few and far between (certainly if you acted on last month’s Ecologist guide to sex), same-sex marriages are in, with certain grooms as likely as women to be walking down the aisle in a dress – and that’s if the knot gets tied in the first place. Marriage is at its lowest ebb for a century, with growing numbers of us choosing to stay together without the sanction of church or state.

And just as the wedding-vow staples of honouring and obeying have been jilted at the altar, couples are cherry-picking which other parts of the package enjoyed by their parents to jettison. Expense for a start – the average UK wedding costs anything from £12,000-£20,000 – but they’re also increasingly aware of and keen to limit the waste and environmental impact of getting hitched. From dresses to decorations, here’s the Ecologist guide to having a green and ethical wedding…”

To read the full Ecologist ‘Green weddings: how to get married ethically’ article click here.

Katie

Time is flying in a ridiculous fashion these days and my baby daughter, Polly will be 1 on Sunday.

It has been a wonderful year for learning what parenthood is all about – sometimes stressful, sometimes tearful, usually joyful, often hilarious – but not such a good year for writing regular posts on the Ethical Weddings blog.

Forgive me? My multi-tasking skills seem to have transferred to nappy changing while entertaining with soft toy and/or small book.

Anyway, I will endeavour to write more, better, more often… I will.

And if you fancy helping me out, new ethical wedding bloggers are always welcomed with open arms.

Right, must get to bed before the little’un gets us up again.

Night, night.

Katie

Read all about:

• special offer from ethical jewellery designers, Leblas
• new supplier Shoo-Foo – and their special offer
• Niki and Andy’s ethical wedding story

Katie

She’ll be planning your weddings for you in no time!

Katie, Jamie – & Polly

Even though our posts aren’t coming quite as thick and fast as they once did – the inevitable result of new small child-shaped duties and related sleep deprivation – they liked the mix of real life ethical wedding stories and issue updates (the latest on conflict diamonds for example).

If you’re planning your ethical and green wedding at this very moment why not become an EW blogger and share your experiences? Then when you hit an ethical wedding dilemma you’ve an audience of brides and grooms on tap ready to help you out. Drop us an email to get involved.

A new ethical bride will be joining us very soon… watch this space.

And thanks again to You & Your Wedding for the blog love!

Katie

Weddings are such an expensive business, she said, ‘I just want at least one bit of the expense to go somewhere where it can do some good’ – and she thought she would probably donate the dress back again after the big day.

Obviously my friend knows I run Ethical Weddings but as a rule I don’t preach to my nearest and dearest so it was lovely to hear that we shared the same views.

She hasn’t found ‘the dress’ yet though so if you’re in London or Sussex and see a fab wedding dress in a charity shop (size 8-10 – although could be taken in if bigger) let us know and we’ll track it down. And if you’re able to send us a pic, all the better!

Happy dress hunting,

Katie

Why an ethical wedding?

We aren’t big consumers in our personal lives, so we didn’t want a wedding that created a huge carbon footprint. We’re mindful of most of the issues, and it seemed natural to us to question a lot of the traditional aspects of weddings that create so much unnecessary waste and expenditure.

What was the most difficult bit?

The biggest difficulty was that most of my family live in Australia, but we live in London and most of our friends live here too.  A way around all our family flying over here is that we have two weddings – one in the UK and one in Australia. That obviously increased the budget and our carbon footprint!

What were the best bits?

Pre-loved jewellery
My engagement ring came from Gray’s Antique Market in Bond St, and it’s a beautiful 1920s platinum ring. Mark bought me some antique pearls from the same place as a wedding present and Mark’s ring was found in an antique store as well – a very romantic platinum band with engraved flowers all around it.

My wedding ring is a 1930s platinum eternity band from a second hand dealer in Portobello Market, and I found my rhinestone earrings in another shop in the market. We got all of our rings engraved with our wedding and engagement dates, but we just loved that they were pre-loved – we think it’s incredibly romantic and also we’re thrilled with the classic designs.

The best presents EVER
Because we were travelling through Asia on the way to our Australian wedding, we asked our guests to buy us intangible presents. They could choose to buy us a vegan dinner on our trip, an experience like a yoga class, or they could donate to a local project, like an orphanage in Bali. One friend even bought us a gift voucher to Kiva – so we could lend to an entrepreneur in a developing country.

The honeymoon
On our honeymoon we stayed in small eco resorts, family run hotels, yoga retreats and an awesome hotel in Singapore that served salads for breakfast.  Part of our honeymoon was even spent doing a fasting retreat in a yoga centre!

The lovely venue
We found a gorgeous old Tudor house and barn which is run by an education trust that puts on gardening workshops for children and young offenders.

We got married in the barn and then because of our beautiful summer’s day we had most of the afternoon reception outdoors, in the Tudor garden and orchards, playing cricket and having picnics on the grass. We hardly needed any decorations because the barn already had fairy lights and a huge vaulted wooden ceiling. Outside there were lovely fruit orchards and hedges, so we just got a few flowers to decorate tables for the evening.

Our venue in Australia was the local surf club, so we got “married” again on the beach – no decorations needed.  We just used green apples in fish bowls with some green foliage on the tables with a few flowers.

A summer picnic
During the day, the vegans and raw foodists had fresh fruit and raw vegan chocolate brownies, made by Charlie’s Raw Treats.

We found a local brewery, which supplied biodegradable cases of beer as well as zero-carbon water from Belu (we couldn’t have tap water at the venue). Everything else was recycled afterwards.

In the evening, while the carnivores had locally-grown lamb and vegetables, the veggies, vegans and raw foodists had a fabulous creation of raw lasagne (from a Russell James recipe), and then a specially made dessert of raw chocolate brownie, raw lemon cheesecake and berries.

A nice side effect
Although we were both interested in green issues before we got married, going on a raw vegan diet had a welcome side effect for both of us. I lost over 7kgs (two dress sizes) just by cutting out dairy and meat, and Mark lost a bunch of weight too. By the time the wedding came around, we felt so much healthier and had so much more energy while we were travelling on our honeymoon.

Fashion
I know it doesn’t sound very eco but I had more than one dress… hear me out!
I got a big traditional dress second-hand off EBay, and a slinkier dress to wear later and to take to Australia. Both of these dresses have been sold again to Ebay, so hopefully someone else will wear them and love them too. I made my own headpiece, and found an antique paper umbrella from Greenwich markets.

We recycled the bridesmaids’ dresses from the first wedding for the second one in the UK. Thank god they worked on all four girls!

How did it go on the day?

It was just such a chilled day, and it was so fab having my mum, little brother and uncle over from Australia. Thank god the weather was good. It’s always a gamble in the UK, even in summer. We were panicking because we didn’t really have a plan B – we would have all had to be jammed into the barn.

The sun meant that we could play around in the sunshine, and everyone was relaxed and happy. The live local jazz band really added to the day too.

The venue provided an archery range, we had giant Jenga, and a big cricket game broke out between the Aussies and the Brits. All in all, it wasn’t the most expensive or complicated wedding – but it was truly spectacular!

Getting married on the beach at the Australian wedding was amazing, we could even see whales on the horizon. The funniest thing was at the end of the night – we reused the apple decorations to play a game with all the guests.

Top tips for an ethical and green wedding

• Don’t beat yourself up
  Some things will feel easy to make eco – and others will feel hard. Do the best you can do, but don’t worry if you don’t get absolutely everything right. I felt like I had to compromise on some things to keep my groom happy, but I was happy with most of the actions we took.
• Minimise the unimportant
  Ignore the things like party favours on tables (nobody will miss them) or cake boxes (we had just ten just in case). If you are printing programmes or menus, not everyone needs a copy. As long as there is good food and drink – people don’t care about anything else!
• Go secondhand
  There are so many gorgeous wedding dresses on EBay that have been worn only for a couple of days. You can find bridesmaids dresses, shoes, and all sorts of decorations that other more zealous brides feel like they couldn’t do without. You can benefit!
  Secondhand jewellery is also extremely romantic and if you go for a classic design, it will look brand new.
• Don’t be afraid to ask!
  When we first met our caterer, both of us were carnivores – by the time our taste testing rolled around Mark was mostly vegetarian and I was a raw vegan foodist! I was embarrassed at first to ask to change the menu to include a raw option – even though we were paying for it (and I used to be an event planner!). The caterer was totally fine with it, and very intrigued about making a raw lasagne.
• Finally – make it fun and totally YOUR DAY
  Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks you “should” have – and make it as personal as you want. There aren’t any rules anymore!

About Denise
Denise is the creator of Raw Brides – a website for women who want to look fabulous for their big day and beyond by eating a natural, whole foods diet and changing their mindset about how they feel about their bodies. You can find out more and also download a free ebook from www.rawbrides.com

Seasonal wedding flowers

The church was beautiful, we found a florist who was a friend of my parents, and who was sympathetic to our green ideas.

She sourced flowers and greenery as seasonally as possible, including some raided from my parents’ garden the previous day (!), and also made up some planters of growing flowers and herbs that we took away to keep afterwards.  The results were stunning.

A very personal wedding ceremony

Our church wedding was fantastic too.  As we are both Christians, the spiritual aspect of marriage was really important to us, so getting married in church was particularly special.

The service was wonderful – our friend and university chaplain led the service so he was able to tailor it to us quite a lot (his address to the congregation after the marriage involved Bagpuss!) – and as there is quite a lot of choice about what wording to use for the marriage service, and which readings (Bible or not) and music to use, the whole thing felt very personal.

We entered the church to the Beatles’ ‘Here comes the sun’ in the end, very happy! We involved friends and family in leading the readings, prayers and music too, which was lovely.  We exchanged wedding rings from Cred (who really impressed us), and our little ‘engagement ring’ trees made it along to the church too as decorations.  And we made our own service sheets (using Evolve recycled printer paper), including our story in them.

Snap happy guests

After the ceremony we did a big photo session in the pretty churchyard, with my keen amateur photographer uncle doing the ‘posed’ photos, and the rest of our photos taken by the guests who then posted their digital photos on to us.

It worked out really well, despite what you hear about how you must get in a professional.  With so many people doing your photos you are bound to have a fantastic selection of shots, and they covered different groups of guests, as well as getting some fantastic informal pics to add to the posed ones.

Homemade confetti

We had made our own confetti the previous summer, by drying rose petals in the oven and storing them in warm, dark and dry boxes. We decorated the boxes we stored it in with some shiny red paper from Oxfam (again – they did well out of us!) to make pretty serving boxes to pass round for guests to pick out handfuls from.  And it was so beautiful, the colours were preserved really well.

The cherry tree in the churchyard decided to add to our confetti and showered us with blossom as soon as we stepped out of the church, which was VERY cute.  It made a wonderful backdrop to the photos too.

Love,

Helen and Mike

What have we got for you this month?

• a DIY wedding in Denmark
• a tasty Suffolk wedding celebrating local produce
• a special offer from new Ethical Weddings supplier, green wedding venue Penrhos Court in Herefordshire
• quirky charm from new Ethical Weddings supplier, Vintage Tableware

If it hasn’t already popped into your inbox, read our September newsletter here.

Happy planning!

Katie

I’d like to share my ideas with you – brides and grooms trying to plan a wedding less ordinary – and see what you think.  How has it been for you?  What have been the challenges? What have been the triumphs? If you were starting again, would you go for a green wedding again?

Have a read… and let us have your comments.  Here goes:

Back in 2004 when we were planning our own wedding and planting the first seeds for the Ethical Weddings website we asked people what they thought of the idea of a green or ethical wedding (limiting environmental impact, choosing products and services that give something back: fair trade, organic, local). The usual response was: won’t that be more expensive?

Fast forward 5 years and into one deep, dark recession you’d expect that misconception to have landed the green wedding squarely in the compost bin.

Not so. Because the bevy of ethical brides and green grooms who have trod lightly down the aisle since have shown us that if you’re after a green wedding less really is more. It’s a perfect match for the make do and mend spirit revived by our current crunch.
As we all cut back, the big star-for-a-day, broke-ever-after wedding is going down.

Something borrowed

There’s no longer any shame in sharing (something borrowed?) or secondhand – just type ‘wedding’ into your local Freecycle site and you’ll find brides and mothers-of seeking and offering wedding gowns, bridesmaid dress patterns, cake stands, and more. And don’t forget the rage for all things vintage which makes a charity shop wedding gown the ultimate in eco chic.

DIY weddings

In the effort to curb costs, couples discover doing-it-yourself can be a lot of fun and bring family and friends together. Blogger brides on the Ethical Weddings website suggest tips on everything from grow-your-own bridal flowers to cooking up the wedding breakfast. As Henriette says of catering for her 40-guest wedding:

“It was all down to good planning (yes, I had made a spreadsheet!) and choosing food which could nearly all be made a day in advance. […] it was a great success with food far better than we ever would have been able to pay for if we had hired caterers. And it was a lovely thing for our families to do together.”

Meanwhile, Jenny grew daffs, crocuses and primroses in her garden. These “…made great table and floor decorations which are living on in gardens and conservatories.”

Green brides don’t mind getting their hands dirty!

Ethical and green wedding experts

DIY done, it’s time to turn to the growing number of ethical and green wedding specialists for your nuptial needs – whether that’s organic, handcrafted chocolate favours, a pre-loved, re-fashioned wedding dress or perhaps a rickshaw to get you to the church on time. They won’t add ££s at the whisper of the word ‘wedding’ but will work with your budget to help create the wedding of your dreams without compromising your values.

Loving local

Support local suppliers too – even if they’re not yet waving the green flag. You may find them willing to consider fresh ideas in difficult times. Ethical Weddings blogger, Emma says:

“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 [wedding cake maker] is a great example. She’d been wanting to “go ethical” and just needed someone to ask her to do it.

A wedding to remember

It seems the slump has made us more careful about if and how we use our hard-earned cash. We’re getting down with DIY and spending with businesses that share our values. The payoff? A more personal and memorable day for us and a little something back for our poor put-upon planet.

The green wedding is here to stay!

Katie