No, white weddings surely?
Well, usually, but in this instance, green weddings!
There are as many ways to have a wedding as there are couples wishing to get married. Every couple will have something that makes their special day unique to them, and celebrates their love.
If you’ve recently got engaged, or are thinking about planning a wedding, reading bridal magazines and websites, and even the shortest of visits to Pinterest or Instagram, will soon have you overwhelmed with ideas. And that’s before you visit a Wedding Fair!
One of the major decisions that you will need to make, early on, is what the general style of the wedding will be. This is often tied closely to the venue, time of year and size of your guest-list, but these should all hinge on your personalities. It’s no use arranging a formal do if you’re not especially formal people, and vice versa.
If you’re both people for whom reduce-reuse-recycle is automatic, where purchasing and travel decisions are considered against carbon footprint, and sustainability is your default choice, then Hi! We’d like to be friends!!
MAKING YOUR WEDDING GREEN
There are many ways to create a green wedding that matches the rest of your lifestyle, but is still just as elegant and special.
Choosing suppliers for food, flowers, clothing, transport and decorations can be narrowed down to those who are local, or use sustainable or ethically sourced produce. There are endless Instagram suggestions for home-made table and venue decorations, or bargain-hunting vintage tea sets for serving the wedding cake. Or how about finding an antique wedding dress? There are so many options to reduce the environmental impact of your wedding.
You can also consider ways in which the transport footprint can be reduced – holding the wedding ceremony and reception close together, or running a minibus to transport guests between them, choosing to carbon-offset honeymoon travel, or taking a less distant option. I hear Cornwall is very nice for honeymoons…
A LITTLE ABOUT DIAMONDS
And naturally, because it’s us, we’d like to talk about diamonds. For most of the last century, diamonds have been thought essential to a proper engagement ring. Every so often you’ll come across a maverick with a pearl ring, or rubies, but they are outliers. However, mined diamonds have developed a bad rep in recent years. An increasing awareness of the ethics around any purchasing decision has contributed to a reduction in the number of people who are prepared to stump up for an ethically dubious mined diamond. Most people have heard of Blood Diamonds, and for those with an ethical inclination, a mined diamond just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Step forward man-made diamonds.
Ethica Diamonds is delighted to offer discerning customers an alternative to a mined diamond that is ethically sound, has almost zero environmental impact, and also costs around 10% of an equivalent mined diamond. (Which also means more money for your Wedding Fund too – which is a nice benefit!) Our Lab-Grown Gemstones are visually and chemically identical to mined diamonds of the highest quality, with an ethical heritage you can put your trust in. You can read about our environmental ethos here, and discover more about the equivalent impact of mined and man-made diamonds in this infographic.
