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

We’ve been in the throes of finalizing our plans, as our wedding is on November 7 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. As we have scrambled to finish up our ceremony, music selections (we’re going the iPod route so that we can play exactly what we want) and ceremony/reception details, we have realized how much stuff is actually involved in many weddings. Not that we didn’t know that already, but when you’re in the thick of things it hits home how much stuff there really is.

Less is more

We’re having our ceremony and reception at an all-inclusive facility that does everything (it’s called Vallarta Adventures, and they have been fantastic to work with so far), but we are definitely one of their less-is-more clients. Like we don’t want lots of flowers, don’t want wedding favors, don’t want anything thrown at us or released (like rice, birdseed, balloons, etc.), don’t have lots of guests, don’t want lots of decorations (heck, there will be a beach there, and that’s plenty for me), don’t even have a professional photographer, and on and on.

But we’re definitely the exception, as I know most couples have all this stuff and more. And it’s all the stuff and all the waste that, in the end, is really harming our environment when it comes to wedding overload.

So what’s a couple to do when they want a nice, elegant wedding but don’t want all the stuff?

Recycled weddings

Well, the first option is to recycle it, either by selling it after you use it or by literally recycling it (which means it needs to be recyclable).

Do I need it?

The second option is to simply not buy it all in the first place. Now, at one time I was as guilty as the next person of overconsuming, but my fiancee and I have made a concerted effort in the last few years to de-clutter our lives, and it has really changed how we buy things and how much we buy. In fact, the first question I ask myself when I see something neat or cool or gotta-have is “Do I really need this?” Granted, sometimes it’s nice to spoil yourself, but for the most part, the things that we really need can fit on a fairly short list.

So, next time you sit down to plan your wedding, or next time you’re browsing through bridal magazines and see all sorts of cool wedding-related stuff, ask yourself if you really need it. Chances are you don’t, and for every centerpiece you don’t buy, that’s one less thing sitting in a landfill for 1,000 years (and more money for your first home, or your honeymoon, or to pay off your college loans, etc.).

Jeff

Take it away John…

Judging the book by its cover I wasn’t sure what to expect.  However, taking the traditional proverb into consideration, “never judge a book by its cover” I engaged my brain and began to leaf through the pages.

Real wedding stories

I soon came to realise that, whether by design or not, the book read better by identifying the particular area I was interested in from the contents page and going straight to it.

The book is split into chapters that guide you through the planning of a wedding and describe how a groom can aid the process by supporting his bride without taking over.

It is populated with lots of little hints and tips from the author’s own experience and tales he has been told and although the chapters follow on from one another, they can still be read as individual stories.

Spend, spend, spend?

During the planning of our wedding, my wife and I received numerous nuggets of advice.  Most of these seemed to revolve around how people wished they had celebrated, or would celebrate, their wedding.  More often than not the advice involved lavish spending on things that simply weren’t important to us.

Sadly, this book is the same.  At one point the author pays a lot of attention to how everyone should be dressed; Tuxedo being the appropriate attire for the male members of the wedding party (this seems to be a US tradition).

So the book is let down in parts by the spend, spend, spend mentality that seems to have gripped the world of wedding hosting and planning.  The focus on how people should look and the details of the accessories was off-putting.

On a brighter note, the author does suggest something that I have never read before or since in a wedding planning guide.  He suggested using a laptop playlist for your music at the reception.  We decided to do this and it worked much better than we could have hoped.

A handy wedding planning guide

Michael Essany has populated his guide with plenty of hints and tips that I found refreshing, to such an extent that I would happily recommend it to any of my friends embarking on the journey.

There were parts that I found frustrating but as the book is only meant as a guide and not a strict course that everyone should follow step by step I could live with these.  The guiding stories and handy quotes that are found throughout the book illustrate how planning a wedding can be enjoyable at the same time as being emotionally draining!

Thanks for that great review, John.  If you’re interested in reviewing a wedding book or product on the Ethical Weddings blog, do get in touch – you’ll be in demand!

Book giveaway

The people behind ‘Groomology’ have also very kindly given us 2 copies of ‘Do you know your bride’ and 2 copies of ‘Do you know your groom’ to give away – great little quiz books to make sure you’re marrying the right person!

The first 2 people to email us at info@ethicalweddings.com with the subject ‘I want to know my bride/groom’ will get them.

Happy planning!

Katie

Jeff Kear is a green groom (otherwise known as Groomasaurus) getting ready to wed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  We’re thrilled that he has agreed to share his green groom moments with us on the Ethical Weddings blog – but before we get stuck in to his posts, here’s his blogger profile…

Your name: Jeff Kear
Wedding date: November 7, 2009
Venue and location: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Budget: $15K

What inspired you to have an ethical wedding?
We both are pretty environmentally minded in our everyday lives. We recycle. We compost. We drive eco friendly cars (Mini and Prius). We buy organically grown veggies and range-fed meats. We vote green. We have re-insulated our house to save energy. And we always turn out the lights when we leave the room. So having an ethical wedding just seemed to be the natural choice.

What has been the most difficult bit so far?
Staying away from using paper. Instead of sending out save-the-dates and invites, we are doing everything via email. I think people always expect paper invites, so we’ve surprised many by doing well designed e-invites.

What has been the most fun bit?
Investigating all the alternatives to a mass-produced wedding. There are lots of fantastic alternatives to an expensive and large-carbon footprint wedding, especially recycled handmade products.

What are your 5 top tips for brides and grooms planning an ethical wedding?
1. Use the Internet for your communications, even your invitations – it saves on paper.
2. Stay away from favors and decorations that will end up in a dumpster and use things that are either recyclable or re-useable.
3. Be mindful of the “consumption” mindset of weddings (i.e. lots of stuff) and make your day about the relationships and the people, not the stuff.
4. Use carbon credits to offset the carbon footprint of your wedding.
5. Think of cool ways you can get your guests to be green (e.g., carpool to the wedding, don’t wrap gifts or wrap them in newspaper that can easily be recycled, etc.).

We’ll be back with more green groom posts from Jeff soon.  In the meantime, why not try out his free online wedding planner, My Wedding Workbook?

Happy planning!

Katie

Despite the attention-grabbing, almost ominous presence of “W-day” on the horizon we’re still able to find so much joy in the silly little things of now each day.  Building snowcastles on a hilltop in Nottinghamshire, revelling in the loud riffs and innuendos of some classic ACDC, enjoying the amazing sound that a pile of melting snow on the pavement makes when you stamp in it, baking a big gooey coffee-chocolate cake for no particular reason, annihilating our taste-buds at an awesome curry house for our 3 year anniversary…

Now we’ve started to notice a change in the air; the snow melts, the ice thaws, the sky gets noticeably brighter at hometime every day.  The crocuses came in to flower here this week and the daffodils are growing fast!

We’ve been through some crazy and stressful times the last few months and in some ways “it’s been a long cold lonely winter” for us.  But “here comes the sun”, and now is the time to put out new shoots, to cast away the huddled-up worries of winter and break new ground, to end this long season of self-analysing and outreachingly be, and enjoy living!

download An Officer and a Gentleman The Detonator video

Love,

Mike and Helen

Read Mike and Helen’s full profile

• In Bruges release

The couple: Sarah Irving and Marc Hudson
Wedding date: 27 September 2008
Venue and location: Manchester Registry Office and Manchester Bridge Club
Approx budget: £3500

What inspired you to have an ethical wedding?
I’ve been involved in environmental and human rights campaigning since my mid-teens, including spending time doing human rights accompaniment in the Middle East and working in social and environmental journalism.

Marc works in the NHS and is very involved in local and national climate change campaigning and education.

So an ethical wedding was always the only option for us – we wouldn’t have been comfortable with anything that didn’t reflect our values. Both our immediate families were very much in sympathy with this.

We were working to a pretty small budget so we wanted to keep consumption to a minimum, and this fitted in with our environmental values too. Both of us preferred not to have a big wedding list – we’d been living together for several years, and didn’t feel we could justify getting loads of new ‘stuff’.

Instead we opted for a small list of a few things that we did need around the house, for people who were happiest getting us a conventional wedding present, and asked everyone else to donate to an environmental charity or to a youth theatre project in Palestine.

What was the most difficult part about organising an ethical or green wedding?
Finding a venue that allowed us to use our own caterers, but also had reasonable kitchen facilities.

We originally booked a local church hall, which was perfect, until about 6 weeks before the wedding they announced that their building work was going to over-run and they couldn’t guarantee that the new concrete floor would have set in time! I nearly had a heart attack.

But then we remembered Manchester Bridge Club, which doesn’t advertise itself as a wedding venue but does host functions, and we’d organised benefit events there before so there were links to our everyday lives, which was quite nice.

What was the most fun bit?
For me, getting married in a lovely little gold dress which made me feel fantastic but which I’d got for a tenner in a second hand warehouse on Oldham Street in Manchester’s ‘up and coming’ (read: still a bit dodgy) Northern Quarter.

For Marc, probably getting to wind me up about what surname I’d be using after the Big Day…

How did it go on the day?
Great. Our caterers, GreenPlate were incredibly helpful and took so much off my hands.

But Marc’s best man, Dave, was an absolute Godsend, and completely saved the day when it came to the cake.

I’d ordered 100 vegan, organic chocolate brownies from On The 8th Day, our local ethical co-operative grocers, and at about 4 in the afternoon, sitting on a lounger in a hotel spa on my hen day, wearing a terry robe and swimsuit, I realised that I’d forgotten to pick them up that morning. But one phone call and all was solved… what a star.

What would be your 5 top tips for brides and grooms planning an ethical wedding?

• Accept offers of help, but find people single, clear tasks to do that fit their skills – if your mate really ‘gets’ organic food or second-hand clothes, sign her up for help on that.
• Find suppliers who will talk to you and listen to what you want; our caterers were just great at talking through what was important to us in terms of organics, local food, fair trade and so on, and working out how best to meet our aspirations within our budget.
• If you’re just looking for a reception venue and don’t need it to have a marriage ceremony license, look for places that don’t advertise themselves for weddings – they’re often cheaper and more flexible in their terms.
• Most mainstream wedding venues really don’t ‘get’ ethical food. This is likely to be one of the biggest expenditures of the day and to use up the most resources, so if you really want to keep things ethical find a local independent caterer who understands what you’re looking for, or use a venue which specialises in this kind of thing.
  The Vegetarian Society and Soil Association have good national listings for vegetarian and organic caterers, hotels, function rooms, and so on.
• Have fun! What’s really more important – matching your seat covers to your napkins, or spending a really special day, not stressed out to insanity, surrounded by the people you love most, and enjoying it?

Sarah Irving is a freelance writer – read about Sarah’s work at www.sarahirving.net

Henriette and John have taken time out from their wedding planning schedule to share a few details from their big (or small!) day…

The couple: Henriette and John
Wedding date: 30 May 2009
Venue and location: Parents’ garden, Denmark

What inspired you to have an ethical wedding?
I have never wanted a princess wedding and I have always had a very untraditional view of special occasions.

My fiancé and I always agreed that we didn’t want a large wedding and that our dream wedding was a BBQ with close family and friends.

As I am Danish and my fiancé is British we will be having a bi-national and bi-lingual wedding. From early on I wished to have the wedding in my parents’ garden. Neither of us is religious and the local authorities where my parents live do not do wedding ceremonies outside the very ugly town hall built in the ’70s. So we have agreed on a humanist ceremony.

As our wedding is already going to be very untraditional and we already live in a fairly ethically conscious way it seemed natural to try and incorporate these ethical ideas into the wedding.

Also the whole princess wedding and spending so much money and resources on a party makes me feel very uncomfortable.

What has been the most difficult bit so far?
The most difficult part has been to get over the green guilt and just accept that it won’t be squeaky-clean green but that we are doing our best.

Another difficulty is planning a wedding in Denmark while being in the UK. But lots of things can be found over the internet and of course I have my parents and family to take care of many things.

Having the wedding in Denmark poses some extra problems when trying to do it green. Denmark is a much smaller and less diverse country than the UK. Organic and fair trade products and food are available but there is much less to choose from and it is more expensive than over here.

But getting over the green guilt and just remembering that we never wanted our wedding to be perfect helps a lot. We are just going to have to do our best and compromise when needed.

What has been the most fun bit so far?
I really enjoy planning stuff and this has been no exception. It has been great getting inspiration, coming up with ideas and creating stuff from scratch.

Also involving other people in doing things for the wedding that they are good at has provided me with much joy. For example, my sister loves making cards and to see her having so much fun designing and making our invitations was one of the top moments so far.

What are your top tips for brides and grooms planning an ethical wedding?
1. Enjoy the planning process; it can actually be really fun.
2. Don’t give in to the green guilt, every little thing you do helps.
3. Involve those close to you but don’t pressure anyone else into being green.

Thank you Henriette and John! We look forward to reading your first post very soon.

Katie

If I could have chosen one place in the world to fall in love, it would have been Woodford Folk Festival. Living in Brisbane, Australia, since 2000 (and prior to that, Birmingham, England), I have been constantly enthralled by the beautiful surroundings of my favourite city. Just to the North of Brisbane, Woodford lies in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, in view of the Glass House Mountains.

As editor of Soulshine, an Australian independent music website, I have been very much involved in the music scene since 2004. Woodford represents the highlight of the music year for many people in Australia, and it now has an added significance for me! Lachie and I met as we were volunteering together on the same festival bar, and we got together on December 30th, 2005. I must have known I was on to something, as I sent a midnight text message to everyone in my phone book, telling them I had met someone amazing!

Knowing I was moving to Melbourne to be with a sick friend just ten days later, we spent every minute together until the time came to say goodbye. By now we were well and truly in love, and spent the next two months spending hours and a small fortune staying in contact by phone. After moving back to Brisbane, Lachie moved to a house just 70 metres from mine, and our lives were shared from then on. So it was that in September 2007, when I had to return to England, that Lachlan found himself returning with me.

Lachie is a high school teacher, and little did I know that when he went to school, he was plotting with other teachers and teaching assistants how to pop the question. We had talked about it a little, feeling that marriage was our next logical step, and when our second anniversary came around, I hoped that he would seize the moment! However, it was midafternoon by the time we set off for the little town of Kirkby Lonsdale in Cumbria for our daytrip, and the sun was starting to set by the time we sat down on a bench overlooking ‘Ruskins View’. In fact, Lachie was so busy trying to find the right words that it was almost complete darkness when he actually proposed. What a relief!

Of course, it’s only once you’re a bride-to-be that you suddenly realise what that actually entails! My first few forays across the internet in search of ideas left me quite horrified and somewhat scared at what we were facing. We are pretty simple people, and although I don’t consider myself an eco-warrior (despite the dreadlocks!), I was appalled at how opulent and resource-hungry the wedding industry appears to be. Ironically, the more opulence we found, the more determined we became to have a simple, honest wedding that met our basic requirements to be a positive experience and eco-friendly.

In my next post, I’ll describe the arduous process of searching for the right venue.. and share the links to some of the places I found!

Neil, Sustainable Tourism Manager for South West Tourism, tells us a bit about the last weeks leading up to his wedding…

The Final Countdown…

With just over five weeks to go, it’s probably an ideal time to reflect on the progress towards our ‘ethical wedding’.

It feels a little uncomfortable calling it that; one, because there are numerous things that could have been done more ethically, and, secondly, it exaggerates our intentions.

When I proposed to Anna on 1st January on a sunny beach in Devon I didn’t really have ethics in mind. But I guess it’s just been part of the decision-making that we usually follow anyway.

As part of our Christian faith we try to make ‘ethical choices’ but wouldn’t pretend that we always do. And some choices that are ‘ethical’ are primarily because, if we’re honest, we like them – and the ethics is an added bonus.

There’s also a work angle for me – I work in sustainable tourism (see www.visitsouthwest.co.uk/feelgood) so there’d be questions asked if we’d not gone down this route.

Ultimately, though it’s about our desire to have a great day that’s a benefit rather than a burden.

A Taste of the West

Food and drink was probably the first thing where ‘ethics’ came to mind. We’re so lucky down here in the South West that we were determined to give the reception a local flavour with some of the top-notch food and drink that we love.

We thought that hiring a venue and then getting caterers in would be the best way but we ended up using a venue (Reed Hall, University of Exeter) that was a member of the local food and drink association so already using plenty of local food. Our dessert is the West Country classic – scones, clotted cream, jam and strawberries!

We decided to organise the drinks ourselves. We’ve had great fun deciding which of the local drinks to go for – in the end selecting Luscombe St Clements & Ginger Beer (appreciating that many of the ingredients aren’t local!) and Elderflower Bubbly (as a non-alcoholic option for the toasts) and Heron Valley Apple Juice. Both are local suppliers based in South Devon, as is the Ashridge Vintage Cider which we are using for the toasts and the Sharpham white wine.

My dad enjoyed the wine-tasting and we got shown round the barn where the cider is made in ‘champagne-style’. For our red wine, as with our tea, coffee, wedding cake ingredients, and even my socks(!) we’ve gone for Fairtrade.

This has meant an awful lot to me ever since I got to stay with a coffee farmers’ family in Costa Rica that was benefiting from a fair price. (That’s also why one of our gift lists is with World Vision). And to give our guests a taste of the west to take home with them our favours are mini-jars of local, award winning jam.

Plain Sailing

As I said some choices have turned out ethical rather than been the initial motive. As Anna was dreaming of her vintage car (not very green, I know) I spotted the most direct route to the church – the canal that runs by my flat.

I’ll be making use of the local canoe hire company to travel from a pub near my flat to the church (we’ll there’s a 3 minute walk uphill from the canal) to travel to the wedding. This is on the strict condition that I don’t wear my proper suit and don’t share the canoe with my accident-prone best man!

I can’t go into honeymoon destinations (a secret) but given that we’re something of a “Can’t fly (Anna), won’t fly (Neil)” couple, we won’t be jetting off, although I have a feeling that with accommodation being a lot more luxurious than normal our honeymoon print will still be sizeable.

We’re aware that most of our guests are travelling cross-country to the wedding and, realistically, will arrive by car so we’ve arranged for offsetting through Climate Care. Not ideal but better than nothing.

We’ve encouraged people to use independent accommodation rather than immediately plumping for the chains. There are some great places around Devon – especially those in the green award scheme that I’m helping to get off the ground down here. Wish there were a few more with the award in Exeter so that we could only recommend those. Give it a couple of years (there are already over 100 in Devon).

Getting Set

With 5 weeks to go there’s still plenty to do but we can’t wait. It’s taken more time doing these extra touches – and maybe cost a little more – but we’ve had so much fun and it will add so much to the day. Just a house move to sort out first of all!!!!!!!!!!

Neil

www.visitsouthwest.co.uk
www.swtourism.co.uk