Wedding planning can be extremely stressful but there are hundreds of checklists and guides that are usually available to help. However, it can be harder when you’re looking to plan an eco-friendly wedding.
While it’s possible some people may find it more difficult as there are various things that they will need to look at like disposable cutlery and wedding plates that are eco-friendly whilst still stunning. Food also comes into it making the menu somewhat harder to plan. But don’t panic, we are here to help and have created a checklist that is perfect for anyone planning an eco-friendly wedding.
Picking the Right Venue
The first thing you need to do is pick the right venue, as your having an eco-friendly wedding why not look at having it outdoors? It would bring you closer to nature and will help you to avoid using artificial lights.
However, depending on the time of year it may not be the ideal season to have an outdoor wedding in which case you will need to look for an eco-friendly venue. This may sound hard but all you need is a checklist. Check, does it allow for the use of energy saving bulbs or candles and will they correctly dispose of any rubbish and not waste any food. You could also check to see if they use recycled furniture as this would mean they have not bought everything brand new.
Sending Out the Invites
After you find the right venue you will need to inform your guests of the date so now will be the ideal time to send out your invites. You need to include all relevant information about the venue, time and of course the date as well as a section stating that you will or will not be accepting plus ones.
You can easily make your invites eco-friendly by using recyclable paper. You should do this with both the invite and envelope enabling your guests to join in on the eco-friendly theme. Avoid wasting any paper by adding all of your information in one section. Too much blank paper means waste and that is one thing that we want to avoid. After the wedding, yourself and guests should then be able to recycle all invites in their composter to add life to the garden.
Preparing the Menu
Once you have the venue and guests know the date you will need to organise the menu. This will require some thinking as you need to cater for all guests. You will need to have various choices that are available so that guests have more of a choice, they won’t all like the same thing and some may have allergies.
To bring the eco-friendly theme to your menu you could look at the local business. That way the food will be as fresh as possible and you will also be helping out the local people rather than the larger branded supermarket chains. Alternatively you could grow a lot of the food yourself, however, this may only work if you’re having a smaller wedding as there may not be enough to go around.
Sorting the décor
The next step is to sort the décor. For this, you could recycle much of your rubbish. Any wood could be decorated to create signs and glass bottles can be used as part of the table décor to hold flowers or even table numbers.
However, there are other things that you will want on the tables such as cutlery and plates. But to give it that eco-friendly feel why not look at disposable plates for your wedding? That way you are being conscious of the environment whilst also giving your guests some beautiful tableware to eat from.
Wedding Attire and Accessories
You will also need to sort your wedding attire which again is easy to do in an eco-friendly way. For the dress, you could look at making your own from repurposed material. It would be completely unique and if made correctly could look stunning.
You may also want to look at jewellery for your big day, why not look at handmade? Like your dress, it will be unique and it would look completely different from any other wedding. Or you could make your own jewellery using various pieces that you already own. It would give you a chance to get creative and would also limit any waste.
Of course, when it comes to a wedding there are hundreds of things that you will need to think about but these are the biggest and once all of these are sorted you can relax a little. So follow this, don’t panic and plan your perfect eco-friendly wedding.
I am a big fan of nature friendly and DIY weddings. One of my best friends decided that table decorations are way too expensive for something you’ll just look at for a couple of hours and then throw away, so she decided to make these decoration herself. She used old bottles, some old newspapers and books, and she created beautiful vases with small roses in them, made from paper too. We did a similar thing for my wedding, and at my wedding we also requested that people don’t bring flowers, instead they brought pet food and accessories that we donated to our local shelter afterwards. It was a magical day.
What a lovely idea, I think it makes Weddings so much more unique and memorable too x