Sustainability is a vital consideration in 2022. With our impact on the planet becoming increasingly clear, it is crucial to incorporate sustainable practices into every facet of our lives – including major milestones like weddings. Fortunately, there are many ways to ensure your big day has a minimal impact on the environment.
As with all elements of a wedding, it will require careful consideration and planning to make your wedding day eco-friendly. Here are some of our top tips to help you achieve your dream wedding sustainably.
Wear A Vintage Dress
Shopping second hand and vintage can be a great way to reduce the impact your fashion choices have on the environment. Vintage dresses can also create a beautiful wedding aesthetic and can become a treasured family heirloom to pass down to future generations. It is best to look for a dress that suits your requirements and have it altered to fit if you need to.
Choose An Eco-Friendly Venue
When selecting your venue, you should ask questions about the space’s sustainability practices. Include queries about their recycling policies, what they do with food waste, and how energy efficient their business is. You could also ask who their suppliers are. It is best to choose a venue as eco-conscious as you are and use local suppliers.
Avoid A Destination Wedding
Destination weddings can be magical, but the emissions caused by guests traveling long distances to get to the wedding location can be a huge contributor to your wedding’s overall carbon footprint. It is best to have your wedding in a local area, where most guests won’t have to fly or travel too far by car to get to the location. You could also consider hiring coaches to get your guests to the venue and avoid multiple vehicles making the trip.
Use Local Suppliers
It is crucial to shop locally when choosing caterers, cake makers, florists, and other essential wedding services. Not only will this help out local businesses, but it will also reduce the carbon footprint of your wedding. You could consider looking for various suppliers within a set radius of your home to ensure that the distance traveled is minimal.
Go Digital With Invites
Invites are an integral part of any wedding. You can reduce the amount of waste paper and other materials associated with your wedding by choosing to send your invites digitally. There are plenty of options for a classy, chic and high-quality digital wedding invite. Check out some of the beautiful event invitation options from Greenvelope for some fantastic inspiration.
Make The Wedding Breakfast Vegan
The wedding meal is another crucial element of the day. As more and more people go vegan for eco-conscious reasons, you could consider making your wedding breakfast a vegan one. There are so many incredible recipes to suit any taste, making vegan cuisine the perfect eco-friendly choice for your wedding. You should contact several caterers who offer vegan options and do some taste testing to find the right fit.
Switch Out The Confetti
Instead of traditional confetti, choose a biodegradable alternative to avoid adding harmful waste to the environment around your venue. Some excellent options include birdseed, flower petals, and rice. You should do some research to find the perfect choice. For instance, you could look for flower petals that match the blooms in your bouquet to create the ideal matching aesthetic.
Ask For Charity Donations Instead Of Gifts
While gifts can be a great way to get you started in married life, the emissions caused by the production and delivery of gifts can be significant. As most people live together before getting married nowadays, many of the traditional gifts are no longer as useful as they were for past generations.
You could ask instead for donations to a favorite charity. This can cut down on emissions related to your wedding and help raise money for a good cause. For additional eco points, you could choose a local environmental charity.
Pick Seasonal Flowers
When selecting the flowers for your wedding, it can be beneficial to consider the blooms that will be in season when your wedding takes place. You could even plan your wedding date based on when the flowers you want will be available.
Choosing flowers that are not in season means that they will have to be grown in artificial conditions, which can hugely impact the environment. You should select flower suppliers that source local blooms to cut down on the emissions from the transportation of the flowers.
Choose Ethical Makeup Brands
When selecting your makeup look for the big day, it can be beneficial to choose brands known for being ethical and sustainable. The beauty industry is a major contributor to pollution globally, so finding brands that are actively working to reduce their contribution to climate change is crucial. You should research the brands available and determine what steps they take to be sustainable, what materials they use and whether they are zero-waste companies.
