Our bi-national green wedding
Mar 19th, 2009 by Henriette
The traditional engagement
I never really imagined being proposed to. For me marriage was always something two people could agree on. Maybe one of them could bring it up and then they could discuss it for a while and reach a decision. I know, not very romantic, but then I am not a romantic really.
However, it was not meant to be like that for me since John likes doing some things traditionally. So no matter how much I thought we could just discuss the matter and agree, I was met with a boyfriend who was having none of it. In the meantime he was busy planning a romantic surprise for me where he got down on one knee in front of both our parents on the day of my graduation.
I will admit afterwards that I did enjoy it. It was really thoughtful and nice. He even asked my father for permission and my father who is a very untraditional Dane was very surprised.
The green inspiration
Whenever we talked about the kind of wedding we wanted we always agreed that it should be a fun and relaxed BBQ. Well actually I first talked about eloping but was vetoed and when it comes down to it I do enjoy the idea of having our families and closest friends surround us on this special occasion.
However, neither of us wanted a big or expensive party. The amount of money which could be blown on one wedding party makes me really uncomfortable to think about. I know many people will say: but it is the biggest day of your life, but frankly I don’t buy into this. As John said the other day: “No, the biggest day of my life will be the day our first child is born.”
He is a soppy romantic, but I will agree, for me there are bigger days. Of course I want our wedding to be a great occasion and an awesome party, where we can have fun with our family and closest friends. But I don’t want to be princess for a day.
Also, living together we have both come to appreciate green living and especially organic food more and more. I am very interested in animal welfare and am a firm believe of voting with my purse. In other words I believe that we can make a bigger difference for animal welfare by supporting the farmers who do a good job and care, and by making sure there is a market for local, organic or free range products.
Of course, we soon realised that the whole green wedding can take over and become an obsession, making especially me feel really guilty if everything was not eco-friendly. It seems like most of the brides and probably also some of the grooms on this website have been down this path.
This is where I felt that this website was extremely helpful. We have now come to the conclusion that it is OK if everything is not eco-friendly or organic. We are at least doing something!
My parent's house where the BBQ / garden party will be held
The bi-national part
As I am Danish and John is British we had to choose between having the wedding in the UK, Denmark or somewhere totally different. This was not a difficult choice as I really wanted to get married in my parents’ garden. They have a really nice, big garden and since we wanted a BBQ / garden party this was the obvious choice.
Also having it in Denmark will mean fewer air miles for the guests since my family is about 4 times the size of John’s. It also meant that we could borrow loads of stuff from my family and thus keep our costs down.
The downside of having the wedding in Denmark is that it is a much smaller and much less diverse country. Where we could easily find good organic, local meat for the BBQ and local drinks in Hampshire where we live, it is just not that easy in Denmark.
Part of my mothers kitchen garden a couple of years ago.
Of course it exists but it is less common and there is less variety. But it is a challenge and we have decided not to let it get to us if we have to compromise on this. Having said that, there is one very big green advantage to having the party in Denmark and that is my mother’s garden. She has always grown loads of veg and flowers and even though the wedding is in late May we should still be able to take full advantage of this.
Read Henriette & John’s profile
