WEB EXCLUSIVE! Easy Tips to Plan a Green, Earth-friendly Wedding: To Love, Honor and Cherish the Earth

Enlarge Image Image Gallery To make up for the fact that Amy's Zum Zum wedding dress wasn't the most green option, Amy donated her dress to the Making Memories Foundation, which uses proceeds from the sales of secondhand dresses to help people with terminal cancer. Rick Hornick

Photography by Rick Hornick

I remember details from my wedding with photographic clarity: a sea of white tables, adorned with brilliant orange and red flowers from the farmer’s market, all set against a clear blue sky. A spectacular field of grapevines stretching toward the September sun. The sound of a busload of guests arriving—the signal that our ceremony was about to begin.

When I consult with others on how to make their buildings, businesses and events more environmentally friendly, I always consider the economics—but usually the funding isn’t coming from my bank account.

Our money—a lot of our money—was at stake in planning our wedding.

Fortunately, my husband, David, and I found that many of our green choices cost less than the alternatives. The average cost for a wedding of 175 guests is $22,000, according to Consumer Reports. We celebrated with 170 friends and family members, and the cost came to $15,000, including the band, our attire and all the extras.
We did a lot of the work ourselves, and our natural wedding was not without compromise. But then, what’s a marriage without compromise?

The big decision

Because the largest environmental impacts often go hand in hand with the largest expenditures, David and I vowed that our biggest financial decision—where we would hold the wedding and reception—would be made responsibly. We chose Flag Hill Winery in Lee, New Hampshire, a small winery and distillery that had recently put its land into a conservation easement in partnership with a local land trust, permanently protecting 106 acres of working farmland, scenic views and river frontage.

We approached the winery staff about serving local and organic foods, and they happily looked into it. When they told us organic food would cost 25 percent more, we declined, knowing that our budget would still allow us to support local farmers by choosing seasonal food.

We asked our friend Brian Hart, the land trust director, to be our Justice of the Peace, and after the wedding we donated some of our gift money to the trust.

Going green makes cents

Our 220 handmade wedding invitations, including the save-the-date postcard, cost $182, about 60 percent less than traditional invitations. We saved paper by double-siding everything and by cutting and pasting the three-fold invitation on tree-free kenaf paper. (Kenaf is a fast-growing, fibrous plant related to cotton and okra.)
We bought the kenaf paper through our local university’s printing center; colleges and universities often buy green paper in bulk, and their print centers may be able to handle small print jobs. We had to compromise on paper color and weight because the print center carried a limited selection, but we spruced up the invitations by gluing smaller amounts of decorative paper to the covers and adding a few ribbons.