7 tips and ideas for a sustainable wedding
When you think of a sustainable wedding, images of vegan buffets and cardboard straws pop up in our minds. It is much more inconspicuous things, with which weddings can burden our environment. We show you eight ways to make your wedding sustainable, which you have not thought about yet.
Paper straws are nicked on the lips after about two strokes. Vegan food can be delicious, but often it is not, and finding a sustainable location can be tough. But planning a sustainable wedding does not have to be that complicated.
1 Select a location nearby
Those who value sustainability must actually start with the selection of the wedding location. It's not about celebrating in an organic farm. It is mainly about the arrival of the guests. This is probably one of the most critical factors in sustainable wedding planning. If you and your family live in Hamburg, a wedding in Austria is not the most environmentally friendly alternative. All your guests would have a long journey, whether by car, train or plane. This is a point that is often forgotten, but guests would save a lot of CO emissions for our environment if you were celebrating in your home country.
So choose the best location, which is close to the residence of most guests. By the way, you make your guests very happy. Most of them are happy when they do not have to travel far to celebrate with you. After all, it is not only a convenience but also a cost factor for them.
2 Eco-Friendly Favors
One point that has gained more and more importance in recent years is the favors. In the meantime, these are found on almost every wedding and often they are sweets that have been packed in plastic bags or test tubes made of plastic. Sometimes the name tags also serve as party favors. The approach is of course good, because you reduce the number of products: Instead of name cards and gifts, there is only one goodie, which is both. Mostly, these special badges are also made of plastic.
A simple and beautiful alternative are small potted plants that guests can take home. If you write the names on the pots, they also serve as place cards. You can also use the DIY variant and bake cookies, on which you write the names of the guests. Or you make your own seed bombs as place cards. If you do the seed place cards yourself, you can do something good twice with the selection of seeds. Take for example bee-friendly flower seeds. Here you can confetti hearts, which are also seed bombs, order directly from Amazon - simply label and finished are subtle Platzkärtchen that later bloom.
3 Reduces stationery
Another step to make your wedding more sustainable is a more conscious use of stationery. Do you really need Save-the-Date cards, or is it enough for your guests to know the date of the wedding as they did earlier? If in doubt, does it also do a digital save-the-date invitation? Thus, also new transport emissions would be avoided. Not to mention emissions from the production of magnets, cans, or any other products that are being converted into save-the-dates nowadays. Let's face it, most guests will throw away these lovingly chosen memories.
The same applies to programs or menus: Is perhaps a sign or a board that all guests pass by instead of printed papers on every table?
But even with the invitation there is room for sustainable options. For example, uses recycled paper or ecological prints. Some manufacturers also participate in environmental programs and plant trees for a certain number of sales or donate proceeds. You can also consider giving the invitations to your guests if you meet them anyway. So you save yourself to send the invitations by mail. These are also small sustainable steps.
4 Avoid disposable tableware
One mixes disposable tableware with a barbecue party in the garden, but also at a classic wedding celebration in the restaurant or hotel still much disposable tableware is used. From the plastic glasses at the sparkling wine reception in the registry office, over straws at the celebration, to disposable kebabs among the appetizers - it is often small moments in which we do not even think that this harms the environment. But there are also eco-friendly alternatives: there are now biodegradable disposable champagne glasses, straws made of glass or metal and small bowls made of bamboo or sugarcane fiber for appetizers.
5 eyes on flowers purchase
There are many things that can be done to help our environment, especially in flower decoration. An effective way for a greener celebration is to forego or reduce cut flowers. Potted plants can also be a beautiful decoration and you can recycle them or give them to your guests. Some locations decorate themselves with potted plants, so you have no purchase costs and can benefit from the in-house decoration.
Those who find the idea of cutting flowers too radical can also take smaller steps: using seasonal flowers, for example. These are usually bred under more environmentally friendly conditions and travel shorter distances. Another important factor is that you put flowers on a local dealer. Online cut flower traders are often cheaper, but even by sending the flowers also harmful to the environment.
Tip: After many weddings, the flowers are simply disposed of. That's too bad! Give it away so that others enjoy it as well. After the royal wedding of Harry and Meghan, the flower decoration was donated to a London hospice - also a nice idea. At home, confetti may still be collected as a table decoration and used several times over. At a wedding party with guests one does not do that. The pretty confetti is so easily disposed of and is in principle unnecessary plastic waste. Because just as beautiful and biodegradable are dried petals as confetti. You can also get her in all imaginable colors.
Tip: Depending on which dried flowers you put, they also smell wonderful. Lavender or other herbs smell good and look nice.
6 Make the wedding dress a heirloom
Not every bride can put on a bridal gown that is already a family heirloom. But you can also make his newly purchased dress heirloom. Stand against the Trash the Dress trend, which destroys the wedding dress after wearing it, but keeps your dress. Maybe one day you have a daughter, granddaughter, niece or even a godchild, who is very happy about it.
You can also make your dress heirloom by reselling it. So another woman can be happy about it and pass it on herself.
7 Donate for a good cause
Instead of classic party favors, you can make a donation on behalf of your guests for a good cause of your choice. You can also - select projects and let your guests choose which project they would like to support on their behalf. So you created some attention for those charitable organizations and purposes that your guests might not have known yet.
Weddings are often expensive, so many bridal couples want money. You can also ask your guests for a donation for the good cause of your choice, or you can donate part of the money you have donated.