Mike Clarke
How To Eco-Chic
Your Wedding Reception
by Kara Zuaro
Tips for planning the green wedding of your dreams.
Before you got engaged, your green sensibilities folded seamlessly into your lifestyle. You recycled dutifully, and you carried a reusable water bottle. Maybe you even biked to work and tended to your organic garden on the weekend. But planning a wedding is such a complicated and expensive endeavor. Do you really need to consider caterers that specialize in local fare, bouquets from organic flower farms, tree-free paper for invitations, and renewable energy credits to offset the carbon emissions caused by guests traveling from afar?
Truth is, you're probably afraid that all this environmental doom and gloom will put a damper on your big day. Besides, how can you worry about the greenhouse effect when you still need to book a photographer and you have yet to choose the color of your bridesmaid dresses? Well, before you throw all eco-friendliness to the wind, consider these simple strategies. With a little planning, you can have the wedding of your dreams — and get Mother Nature's blessing, too.
Food & Wine
Let's be honest here — if your parents and future in-laws aren't as eco-conscious as you are, you're probably going to witness a few eye-rolls the moment you mention using an organic caterer. While the elder-generation may not be concerned about offering delicious options for vegetarian guests or sourcing produce from local, family farms, the fresh flavors of organic food tend to speak for themselves.
Sample wedding menus from three of America's top organic caterers prove that healthful, natural, sustainable food needn't be austere. New York City's Cleaver Co. kicks off a wedding celebration with playful passed hors d'oeuvres — such as Peking duck rolls in scallion pancakes, savory profiteroles stuffed with Peekytoe crab salad, and mini grilled cheese sandwiches with pickled onions and fig marmalade. In their family-style wedding menu, Berkeley's Back to Earth Organic Catering includes porcini-dusted Pacific rock cod with sweet corn emulsion and micro greens, as well as pepper-crusted Marin Sun Farms sirloin with horseradish aioli. Chicago's Greg Christian Catering and Events offers a particularly hearty vegetarian entrée — Sesame Crusted Eggplant Steak, served over red Thai rice, with braised baby bok choy, tofu croutons, and chili oil — a far cry from the sad plate of limp pasta that many vegetarians have endured at typical meat-centric weddings. This Chicago caterer also suggests finishing off the meal with a slice of their Champagne Raspberry Cake, served beside a chocolate-dipped strawberry.
Choose local or biodynamic wine to serve with dinner.
Unfortunately, high-end organic fare doesn't come cheap. And in many cases, the wedding packages offered by affordably priced reception halls don't offer much in the way of earth-friendly menus. If organic food isn't their game, they're probably not going to start supporting local farms on your behalf — no matter how much of an Eco-Bridezilla you may be. Take this in stride, and look for other ways to green your wedding. Even if you have limited control over the food, you may be able choose a local or biodynamic wine to serve with dinner. Biodynamic wines are cultivated with organic farming practices — and without pesticides, chemical growth stimulants, or synthetic fertilizers. And if you're working on a small budget, you might consider offering a limited drink menu — you'll save money by serving selected wines rather than offering a full open bar.
Flowers
Seasonal wildflowers from a local organic flower farm make for a beautiful centerpiece.
Every nature girl wants to be surrounded by greenery and fragrant flowers on her wedding day, but the carbon emissions generated by imported flora can really stink — both literally and figuratively. And just like food, most flowers are grown on factory farms that pollute the earth with toxic chemicals and pesticides. To avoid these issues, look for a florist who uses seasonal wildflowers from local organic flower farms.
Of course, since many neighborhood florists will greet your eco-friendly requests with a blank stare, brides-to-be can also search for organic flower farms in their area on Local Harvest. Brides can also order blooms from Organic Bouquet, a certified organic online retailer.
To prevent excess waste and promote green living, consider using potted plants that guests can take home as centerpieces. Unlike bouquets that will wilt and end up in the garbage within a day or two, living plants will produce oxygen and bring a bit of nature into your guests' homes. If you're concerned about having flower pots block cross-table eye contact, go green with your wedding favors instead. Give tree saplings or small potted plants to guests who live nearby. If the majority of your wedding attendees are traveling from afar, it might be more practical to send them home with a packet of seeds or make a donation to American Forests to have trees planted in their honor.
Invitations
Botanical Paperworks' handmade "plantable seed paper."
Slimming down overstuffed wedding invitations is one way to save paper. A traditional wedding invitation includes an outer envelope, an inner envelope, a card with information about the reception, a response card with its own envelope, some vellum paper lining, and perhaps a map and hotel info — in addition to the invitation itself. Plus, the wedding invitations go out after piles of save-the-date cards, engagement party announcements, and bridal shower invitations. Before your marriage even begins to take root, you may feel as though you've already destroyed a forest.
According to manners guru Emily Post, e-mailing your wedding invitations is bad form, but there are ways to scale down paper invites. First of all, ditch the inner envelope and the paper lining. (Some relatives may tell you that this is tacky, but isn't deforestation so much worse?) Instead of enclosing a map and hotel information in every invitation, post all that info on a wedding website — which you can create for free at TheWeddingChannel.com or TheKnot.com — and send print-outs only to guests with limited computer access.
And rather than including a separate card with the reception information, try to fit a few extra lines of text on the wedding invitation itself. Instead of sending a reply card with a separate envelope, consider sending a pre-stamped reply postcard. Better yet, eliminate the need for an outer envelope by sending a one-piece invitation with a perforated reply card from Seal and Send. This company offers 100% recycled paper in crème and white, and their long and lean format has plenty of text space. Guests can reply by tearing off the reply card and dropping it back in the mail.
For a more romantic spin, Lunalux offers custom-made letterpress-printed invitations on recycled paper with lower-waste options — like reply postcards. Design-minded couples will fall head over heels with Minted's mod graphics, which are printed on hand-made 100-percent recycled cotton paper. Flower children might prefer the handmade "plantable seed paper" from Botanical Paperworks. Their tree-free paper is made with a base of cotton fiber or post-consumer waste and embedded with North American wildflower seeds — so the invitations can be planted after the big day. Whatever you choose, don't forget to order some matching thank you notes, so they'll be ready and waiting when you return from your honeymoon.
Transportation
Pedi-cabs can go the distance on your big day.
Most weddings involve hundreds guests from near and far traveling from hotels, to the ceremony, to the reception site, and finally, back to the hotel and home again — producing some serious CO2 emissions along the way. But before you un-invite your faraway family and friends, consider some creative ways to decrease their carbon footprint — and make transportation a breeze for your guests.
Investigate the option of holding your wedding ceremony and reception at hotel with an event space — or at a reception site with a hotel in walking distance — to decrease automotive travel and make the event less stressful for out-of-towners. You can even use your wedding website to suggest public transportation options from the local airport to the hotel.
If your ceremony is set to be held at a separate site from your reception, think about blocking off a set of rooms in a centrally located hotel, and employ a bus service to transport guests from place to place. This carpooling tactic is not only eco-friendly — it also keeps your guests safe from getting behind the wheel after a boozy celebration. For a smaller wedding with multiple locations that are just slightly beyond walking distance, consider hiring a fleet of pedi-cabs, emission-free bike taxis that are powered by strong-legged cyclists. (Just make sure none of the drivers peddle away with your bridesmaids!)
Another green option is to invest in renewable energy credits to offset your wedding's impact on global warming. To put it simply, RECs represent the environmental benefits of electricity generated from renewable energy sources. A wind farm, for instance, gets RECs for the electricity it produces. When you buy RECs and support green energy, you're counterbalancing the emissions associated with airline and automotive travel. According to Treehugger, "The most recognized certifier of RECs is Green-e, an independent, non-profit group that verifies renewable energy credits and certifies that they are what they claim to be."
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And as you're balancing emissions with renewable energy credits, remember to balance your green leanings with as much fun as possible. After all, every sheet of recycled paper that you manage to use and every organic farmer that you can support will help make the world a better place as you celebrate your anniversaries in the years to come.