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 particularly formal people, and vice versa. If you’re 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 hello! We’d like to be friends!!
MAKING YOUR WEDDING GREEN
There are many ways to create an ethically responsible and sustainable 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. For example, you could hold the wedding ceremony and reception close together or run a minibus to transport guests between them. You could choose to carbon-offset your honeymoon travel or take a less distant option. I hear Cornwall is very nice for honeymoons…
Here are some of our suggestions for local companies who can help you when considering your wedding supplies:
Green Salon is one of our partner companies whose mission is to enable people to create a stylish, sustainable lifestyle in balance with nature. They believe that planetary regeneration begins in our homes and habits guiding customers to the companies and brands that can make that happen. They have spent time researching the best, most stylish, and convenient sustainable products in all areas of our lives. From refillable mascara to e-bikes to gorgeous refillable glass storage jars to sustainable clothes shopping to train journeys around Europe.
Not only this, but Green Salon is a proud partner of TreeSisters, a tropical reforestation programme that over the last decade has planted more than 27 million trees. They give 10% of their revenue to TreeSisters with the goal to plant 10,000 trees by 2025.
What more could you ask for when looking for a company that can help you find green supplies for your wedding?
Live Frankly pride themselves on being a company who write articles to break sustainability down so people can start to understand and align their life choices with their values. They have a directory of brands they believe to be *genuinely* good i.e., ethical, sustainable, responsible, and honest – like Ethica! Our Live Frankly partners are a great choice when it comes to finding what you need for the perfect green wedding.
They have five key philosophies which make them a great directory to use when deciding what you need for your green wedding:
- Be Honest. About the problems we face and the challenges they present. Then see what we can do about it.
- Don’t just think, act! We cannot be all talk and no action. Live Frankly are embodying the action they are taking and helping others to do the same.
- Don’t just do good, do less harm. Eat less meat and eat better, shop less and shop better, travel less and travel better. Less is more!
- Own that we live in an imperfect world and cannot be perfect. We can only make compromises and keep making better choices.
- It’s ok to ask questions but not have the answers. It is better to ask the right questions with no answer than answer those questions with the wrong answer
Blue Patch is another of our Sustainable Directory partners connecting you with eco-conscious and ethical brands, creative makers, and great experiences – from city to countryside.
Their ethos is that they are a sustainable business community, providing net zero education, and funding renewable energy. Impressive! They have a directory that is entirely free to use and is designed to help you make sustainable and eco conscious choices for your green wedding.
Blue Patch are a growing family business that create handcrafted furniture, sustainable textiles, organic beauty products, ethical financial services, retrofit experts, plastic-free paint and more. What more could you want?
Independent, beautiful ethical and sustainable fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands are what our partners Ethical Brand Directory have to offer.
All the brands listed on their directory must meet basic ethical business conduct criteria that expects ‘fair pay and dignified working conditions for all people involved in their business’. The brands must show evidence of sustainable business practices and show that they are working towards a Sustainable Development Goal.
If you want certainty that you are purchasing only the most ethical products for your wedding, this is the company for you! You are guaranteed a green wedding to match no other when you use Ethical Brand Directory.
Discover a range of beautiful but responsible brands, that prioritise people and the planet on their directory.
Visit the Ethical Brand Directory here.
Compare thousands of the biggest brands in The Good Shopping Guide’s ethical ratings tables. They research environmental track records, animal welfare, and human rights issues, reporting the facts since 2001, so that you can make well-informed ethical shopping choices for your green wedding.
The Good Shopping Guide are one of Ethica’s partners who envisage the power of absolute transparency. They publish reliable research about brands and their activities so consumers can easily make an ethical choice when they are choosing a supplier. This way, the public have the power to change the course of climate change and could help stop global warming or human trafficking, animal abuse, overfishing, the fur trade, habitat loss, and the poverty cycle, by investing in sustainable companies.
I don’t think we need to say any more to convince you that The Good Shopping Guide are a great place to go when considering what you need to make your wedding responsible, ethical, and green with sustainability.
Visit The Good Shopping Guide here.
A LITTLE ABOUT DIAMONDS
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 been exposed for the unethical nature of how they are obtained in recent years. An increasing awareness of the ethics and morality around any purchasing decision has contributed to a reduction in the number of people who are prepared to pay 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 responsibly sourced, ethically produced, man-made lab grown 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 costs a fraction of the price of an equivalent mined diamond (which also means more money for your wedding fund – what a great 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 natural mined diamonds and lab grown diamonds in this infographic.
When it comes to having a green wedding, we have got you covered! Have a look at our collection of lab grown diamond bridal set jewellery and discover the bridal and wedding jewellery you, and the planet, deserve to represent the true love and commitment you and your partner have together.
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