Thursday, February 19, 2009
(picture via Toasts & Tables)
You don’t have to grow your own flowers to be eco-friendly. You can, but I don’t necessarily suggest it, especially here in Michigan! Here are a few tips to making your wedding flowers more green:
REDUCE::Cut down on your florals, choose smaller arrangements or opt for silk flowers!
REUSE::When picking out your florals, let your florist know you want to incorporate the same floral pieces in both your ceremony and reception. Have your ceremony pieces designed with their 2nd home at the reception in mind! For reception centerpieces, opt for clusters of potted plants, as shown above!
RECYCLE::After the wedding, donate your florals to a local retirement home, hospital or office building. Any of them would be happy for the splash of color and your flowers will live on after your reception! Be sure to assign this task to someone ahead of time!
Have more tips on planning a green wedding? Share them with everyone by leaving a comment below!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
(Invitations by Earthly Affair)
You may not realize all of the paper used in the process of your wedding. Save the dates, invitations, response cards, menu cards, place cards, escort cards, table numbers, programs, wedding announcements, thank you cards and all of those envelopes can add up to a huge tower of paper that will go to waste after the wedding.
Here are a few suggestions to lighten the paper load of your wedding:
Save the Dates::Send out a postcard-style Save the Date so you can ditch the envelopes
Invitations::If you make your invitations you have a whole array of earth friendly products available to you from partially recycled papers to 100% recycled! If you’re purchasing, use an earth-friendly company such as Earthly Affair who uses recycled materials and has green business practices! Set up a personal wedding website where guests can rsvp online and you’ll cut down on fuel usage by cutting out the mail drop for that RSVP card!
Place Cards::Use alternatives to paper such as beach glass, river stones or reclaimed wood with guests names! This isn’t only earth-friendly, but also unique and beautiful!
Programs::You can make a big dent in your paper pile by cutting out programs all together!
Planning::You can use a huge amount of paper just in preparation for your wedding. We’ve all seen a bride with 4 inch thick binder of printed materials! If you’re thinking about printing it, save it instead! Think twice before printing out pictures, emails or spreadsheets and make sure everything is a final copy before it hits the printer!
Have your own green wedding tips? Share them by leaving a comment below!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
(Madeleine by Claire Pettibone on Once Wed)
If you’re like most brides, your wedding gown is probably a huge part of having your dream wedding. You don’t have to sew yourself a burlap dress to take the environment into consideration when choosing a wedding gown. Consider buying a used gown, renting a gown, or borrowing a gown! This cuts down on production materials, transportation costs (if you’re getting it locally) and you may even be able to get more dress for your money!
Obviously you don’t want to walk down the aisle in a gown everyone will recognize as your Matron of honors hand-me-down, but put the word out that you’re looking—you may find a friend-of-a-friend, coworker or family friend that has a beautiful gowns they’re willing to let go of!
Looking for something specific? Check out Once Wed, an amazing online resource for brides to buy and sell once-worn designer gowns, or even gowns that are new with tags!
Have more green planning tips? Share them by leaving a comment below!
Monday, February 16, 2009
(Shadowland Pavilion in St. Joseph, MI)
If you have 150+ guests attending your wedding, you can bet there are at least 50 cars involved in getting them there, if it’s within driving distance for most guests. That’s a whole lot of gas and a lot of impact on the environment! I wouldn’t suggest asking any of your guest to walk to your wedding, but you can ensure that you do your best to cut down on their impact once they reach the wedding!
Here are a few tips to help your guests reduce their impact on the environment:
Double-duty venue::Choose one location to hold both your ceremony and location and cut down on transportation from one location to the next
Take it Outdoors::Hold your ceremony outdoors and cut down on electricity used for lighting and air conditioning!
Shuttles:: Offer a shuttle service from the hotel to ceremony and reception venues and cut emissions from 40 cars to just 2 or 3!
Foot Traffic::Choose a hotel, ceremony location and reception venue that are all within walking distance. In SW Michigan, one example would be to have your guests stay at the Boulevard Inn in downtown St. Joseph, hold your rehearsal dinner at a downtown restaurant such as Port 412 (2 blocks away), hold the ceremony at the John Howard Bandshell (3 blocks from hotel) and hold the reception at the Veranda at the Whitcomb (across the street from Bandshell) or the Heritage Center (4 blocks from Bandshell). With the downtown restaurants, shops and beach within walking distance, your guest may not step in a car for 3 days!
Have your own green wedding tips? Share them by leaving a comment below!
Monday, February 16, 2009
This week is dedicated to all things green! We’ll look at ways you can make simple changes to make your wedding “eco-chic!” No, we don’t want anyone to grow their own flowers, make their own paper for invites or create centerpieces out of recycled pop bottles…we’re talking simple and practical ways you can help! From invitations and venues to your gown and flowers, we’ll be offering up some practical and easy ways to make a difference on your wedding day! (and some of them will even save you some green$$$)!
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Happy Valentines Day! I hope you all have a lovely day (and weekend) with your loved ones! This is a quick pic of the valentines day cards I sent out this week for the card swap organized by April Foster Events. I’ve never been huge on homemade cards (I just never like how they turn out!) but I ended up actually liking these, so I hope the ladies who get them like them too!
If you’ve never participated in one of these blogger holiday card swaps, you should—I did one organized by Brooklyn Bride for Christmas and it’s really a lot of fun to go to the mailbox and retrieve your homemade cards from random wedding bloggers around the country! Plus, I’m getting a lot better at making cards now that I’m getting all of this practice! On Monday I’ll share the cute cards I received from the other ladies in the card swap!
Friday, February 13, 2009
The winner of the $100 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas AND $100 gift certificate to Beau Coup is Laura K who said,
“My favorite wedding invitation from Wedding Paper Divas was the simple scalloped border wedding invitation in Sage. It is simple and classy just how I want our wedding to appear. My favorite favor is the good wishes glass photo coasters. These are so romantic and so practical. I love pictures and they are something that people can actually use when they leave our wedding!”
Thanks to everybody who commented to win! Laura, please send me an email at jesssica@stellaeventdesign.com with your contact info to claim your prize!
Next week we’ve got a week-long series of posts on planning a “green” wedding tips (no burlap dresses or growing your own flowers) just practical and simple tips on how you can make your wedding more Earth friendly!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Today is your last day to enter to win a $200 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas and Beau Coup. Visit the original post HERE for details on how to win! The winner will be announced tomorrow!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
I love Etsy. How excited was I when I received one of my Valentines cards today from the Valentines Card Swap sponsored by April Foster Events, and saw that it came from a talented gal from Etsy?! And of course, it was completely adorable and creative—it even came with some bonus gifts! Included were some adorable red and pink gift tags courtesy of the CoraAnne Designs etsy shop!
Of course I hopped right over to check out her shop and it is absolutely chock full of cute gift tags like those shown above! Some of her tags would be perfect for tags on favors, or to include with bridal party gifts! There are also some really cute ones perfect for baby showers, birthdays or just for fun! I love checking out the creative people selling on Etsy, there is so much fun to be found there!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
(All pictures via The Knot)
Mark your calendars—next week is “go green” week on the blog! No, we’re not promoting the color green all week (though it can be wonderful!) Instead, we’ll be looking at all of the ways you can make your wedding eco-friendly. No growing your own flowers or grinding your own flour—we’ll be sharing simple and realistic ways to “go green” on your wedding day!
