ethicalweddings.com

Well we completed our first DIY wedding project, making our own thank you cards and save-the-date cards. We used a chemical-free screen printing kit, and recycled FSC-certified paper. It took us a few tries to get the screen to print nicely, and we were worried that it wasn’t going to work. I would have been really disappointed if we had been forced to give up making them ourselves. There are some commercial eco-friendly printing options here, but not only would that have been considerably more expensive, it would have still used a lot more resources even at a green printing company than our handmade operation. Thankfully, once we got the hang of it, everything went smoothly and they printed very nicely and we breathed a huge sigh of relief!

One thing I debated in my head for a while was how big to make our save-the-dates and invitations. I was torn between tradition and expectation, and saving paper (and time). It seems that even cards and invitations haven’t escaped the “bigger is better” way of thinking. Most invitations are in the 5″ x 7″ range (127mm x 177.8mm). The screen I used for printing is 8.5″ x 11″ though. If I made my cards that big, I would only be able to fit two on a screen and I would have a significant amount of waste paper. I thought that if I made them small enough to fit 4 on a screen (4″ x 5.5″ / 101.6mm x 139.7″), people would feel like they were too small since they are used to getting invitations that are quite a bit larger.

But like any good ethical bride, I of course chose to care more about saving paper than about tradition and expectation. I made the cards small, and they still felt very lovely and no less special than if they had been larger. In fact, I loved how the smallness reflected our emphasis on simplicity over unnecessary extravagance. Now I’m looking forward to making our invitations in a couple months on plantable seed paper!