Our wedding pictures have arrived, and I'm so pleased to be posting some of them!

One of the most important elements of creating an eco-friendly wedding is in the décor. If you visit the "wedding" section of many major craft and big box stores, you find a plethora of unsustainable plastic, disposable, one-time-use décor items. Not only is this unsustainable, it's unoriginal! I had so much fun searching through thrift and antique stores collecting the vintage glassware we used for our tabletops—recycled glass containers held bouquets, individual flowers, candles and silverware, and each table had its own cake on a recycled glass cake platter. After the wedding, I was able to gift family and bridal party members with a unique vase or cake plate to take home as a memento.

I also had an in on some great eco-friendly décor as a result of working here at Natural Home. Nashville Wraps supplied the 80 percent recycled giftwrap I used as table runners (thanks to Martha Stewart for the idea). Bright Sun Candles custom-made soy tealights in their Pacific Mint scent. We bought a custom cake topper from an Etsy artist.

My husband and I loved visiting our local flower farm, Pendleton's Country Market, to pick up fresh blooms the day before the wedding. The owner gave us our choice of the greenery and small, edible flowers to round out our peony bouquets. I chose local peonies as the centerpiece flower for a few reasons—to me, they are a cheery sign of the spring season; because I had mixed bridesmaid dress colors and a lot of textures and colors in the décor, choosing just one flower anchored the design scheme; and my mom always grew pink peonies in our backyard growing up, so they bring back good childhood memories.

I think the end goal of your décor choices should be to focus on the things you and your partner love. Our Natural Home interior design specialist, Jami Lin, always says that your home's interior décor should express who you are as a person. I think the same applies to your wedding. Just choose things you love, and the rest will take care of itself.

I really liked the idea that the vintage bottles, Mason jars and cake plates I collected from antique stores had already brightened the tables and homes of others. We have a great story coming up in our next issue about Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic brand. In it, she talks about used items' patinas, how they bring the richness of lives lived into your home. I felt the same way about using vintage pieces in our wedding décor.

Some last important (and time-consuming) reception decorations were the handmade flags my friend and I made using scrapbook paper and hemp twine. This is another craft idea from Martha Stewart I made eco-friendly by choosing responsible, recycled-content materials. You can find recycled-content craft paper online, or ask at your local craft or paper store. Amy Butler makes a recycled-content Lotus scrapbook paper collection. PaperSource offers a variety of ecologically sensitive papers, as well. 

Finally, I bought a few textural items—wooly hemp cloth I found in the craft store's floral section and Nashville Wraps' natural fiber organza mesh ribbon made by fair-paid artisans—to add a warm, country feel.

By handmaking many items and choosing natural products, I think we achieved the unique, handspun feel I was hoping for. I hope you agree!

       
We bought bulk pretzels, honey peanuts and wasabi peas from the bulk foods section to serve during the cocktail reception.
Local peonies wrapped in hemp twine made pretty much anything look good.

I made two types of sangria the night before, and we offered lemonade, iced tea and water.
I found most of the snack and drink containers at vintage stores. Our caterer also had a couple of glass beverage containers.

 
Guests signed a guest book next to photos of the groom and me stretched on hemp twine and pinned with clothespins. 

   

A handmade sign next to the biodegradable cups encouraged guests to hang on to cocktail-reception cups for dinner.

  
My friend and I hand-filled recycled kraft paper bags with birdseed and closed them with stickers.
Guests tossed birdseed as we walked down the aisle after the ceremony. 

    

Rented napkins wrapped with hemp twine, rented silverware, and local flowers and soy candles 
in vintage glassware topped recycled-paper table runners.

We handmade the flags hanging above using scrapbook paper and hemp twine.

   
We ordered a handmade cake topper from Etsy.  

Hello!

Well, the wedding is over and it was a great success. I am waiting to post my OFFICIAL post-wedding blog post until I have the  pictures from our excellent photographer (unluckily for me, she went on vacation almost immediately after our event).

However, a good friend took some gorgeous photos, so I will post a few as my unofficial post-wedding update, just so y'all can get a peek at how everything came together.

Thank you to the many companies who provided gorgeous, eco-friendly goods for the event, namely Bambu's absolutely gorgeous bamboo plates, biodegradable cups from Eco Products via Ellie's Eco Home Store, specialty soy tea lights from Bright Sun Candles and recycled paper for the table runners from Nashville Wraps. Thanks also to the amazing food by local caterers Culinaria, who created a beautiful and delicious spread using lots of local ingredients, and to Pendleton's Country Market in Lawrence, Kansas, for providing the gorgeous local peonies.

Some photos below:

ABOVE: We're almost finished with setup. The tables, chairs, napkins and silverware were rented from a local company, Sunflower Rentals. We tied the napkins with simple hemp twine. I spent months scouring local antique and secondhand stores for the recycled glassware that holds the candles, silver and flowers. Bright Sun Candles custom made soy tea lights for us in their delicious Pacific Mint scent. A friend and I spent months creating the handmade flags. You can see the bamboo plates stacked in the background. Photo by Chelsea Rae

ABOVE: A closer view of the Nashville Wraps "Chocolate Scroll" recycled paper table runners and local pink peonies. Photo by Chelsea Rae

The Bright Sun candles came in very useful creating a romantic atmosphere during the brief rainstorm that passed through just after the ceremony. My groom and his mother made a cake for every table at our house the day of the wedding. They were decorated with small roses from Pendleton's. You can see a biodegradable cup and rented champagne flutes in this photo. Photo by Chelsea Rae

So, I was thinking the other day, and I believe that, thanks to the wonderful products from Bambu Home, Bright Sun Candles and Ellie's Eco Home Store, virtually all the waste generated from our wedding reception will be biodegradable. I tried to avoid disposables altogether, choosing reusable flatware, vintage glassware and other reusable decor items, etc. We've rented as much as possible, something I consider inherently green.

Bambu's organic bamboo "All Occasion Veneerware" arrived in my office about a week ago. Not only are the plates eco-friendly, they are absolutely gorgeous! They look nice in their photos online, but I was just amazed at their high quality when they arrived. And I was shocked at the value. You can buy 100 9-inch plates for about $80. They are THE best solution I could imagine. We couldn't deal with glass or ceramic plates at our country venue, especially without the luxury of a large wedding staff to clear dishes. But I didn't want plastic disposables. These plates look as nice as real plates would, and they are extremely sturdy. Their gorgeous grain and color will fit in perfectly with the aesthetics of our wedding, and they are very reasonably priced. I know, I'm gushing about bamboo plates. It's wedding mania, folks.  

Next, soy candles! The wonderful people at Bright Sun Candles (who I got in contact with through this blog) were nice enough to custom create some soy tealights in Pacific Mint for the event. They smell absolutely wonderful. In fact, the box of them is scenting my entire home right now as they lie in wait for the big day.

Finally, fab biodegradable cups from Ellie's Eco Home Store! We rented reusable champagne glasses, but I didn't think we could manage water, beer and wine glasses. Luckily, these great glasses provide an eco alternative.

I don't believe much more waste will be coming out of this event. We will have to recycle the wine bottles. The keg will be reused by its local supplier.

I feel great about creating an almost-entirely-biodegradable event, and I was surprised how simple it actually was. Check out these great companies for your event, or post other options here. Soon, I will have pictures from the actual event up here!

For my budget-conscious, DIY, eco-friendly country wedding, I'm looking for as many simple and inexpensive ways to create memorable decor as I can find. I've been scouring wedding websites for ideas that fit the bill. As always, Martha Stewart comes through with a bunch of great ideas—I just have to find ways to make them eco-friendly.

When we did a "practice run" of my table settings, which will include collected vintage glass jars and bottles filled with candles and flowers, my fiancé and I realized that, though it looked great, we needed a way to ground the items. They seemed to kind of be randomly floating in the center of the table. I took a look and found this great suggestion from Martha...using elegant giftwrap as table runners.

We worked with the amazing wrapping paper company Nashville Wraps for the Blair House Holiday Decorating Project we did last December, and I knew they offer an unbelievable supply of recycled-content giftwrap. The company was happy to send some samples my way, and I found an 80 percent recycled paper that will perfectly match our decor. Gorgeous table decor complete, plus it's inexpensive, easy and eco-friendly. Success! Feel free to copy this idea or send me some of your own!

 
Photo courtesy marthastewartweddings.com 

As our wedding gets ever nearer (somewhat unnervingly, our wedding website includes a "countdown" of days before the event...we're down to 44 days), we are getting more and more specific in the items we're searching for. I've been canvassing the antique and thrift stores in my town for elevated glass cake plates and containers for beverages. As I believe I've mentioned in my blog before, our plan is to use the many, many vintage jars and bottles I've collected as candle and flower holders, as well as holders for silverware and to create hanging lanterns. Now that the glass collecting part is pretty well wrapped up, I need to focus on the more boring details of the plan: Finding (cheap) bulk soy candles. I'm going to go looking at stores in my town to see what kind of deals I can find, but I may have better luck ordering in bulk from an online source.

Here's what I've found so far:

Candle Soylutions offers bulk soy tealights with paper wicks at $130 for a box of 500. I was thinking I should choose votives over tealights, but they claim their testers burned for 7 1/2 hours—far longer than the length of the reception. And, at the lower price, I could have backup tea lights rather than a bunch of half-burned votives. They also have a pretty reasonable deal on unscented soy votives: $10 for a box of 18 (if you order more than six boxes).

Another reasonable deal I found on bulk soy votives is at Romance by Shirlee, which has a price of $78.12 for six boxes of 12 votives. I'm a little confused, though, because there is a note saying there is a minimum wholesale order of $250 for "free private labeling." Not sure if all wholesale orders have a minimum of $250, or if that's just if you want labeling (which I don't). I also would prefer pure essential oils for scented candles, if I chose to have a scent. I am not sure if Shirlee's "aromatherapy" scents are all essential oils. I need to e-mail the company to find out more.

BsaB Candles also offer soy tealights made with a cotton wick. They cost $40 for 100 candles. Not a bad deal, but still nowhere near the bulk price available through Candle Soylutions.

I know a ton of other companies offer soy candles in beautiful tins or glass containers, but for my needs, these are the best I've found. Please comment with other places to look! I love and appreciate everyone's suggestions—both for myself and for all those other conscientious wedding planners out there.

It's wonderful when something works out perfectly. We were kind of unsettled on our wedding food until last weekend. A very generous chef-friend of ours had offered to prepare the food for our wedding. However, our late-ish date change made it impossible for him to leave his full-time catering gig to attend our wedding, which is on Memorial Day weekend. We were really sad because he's a fantastic chef, and we didn't know what to do.

There are many great restaurants in our city, but we didn't feel like any of the affordable options really suited our personalities and venue. Although we both love Mexican and Thai, for example, we didn't think that would fit the event. We thought about doing the food ourselves—we're keeping the food very simple and trying to make as many things ourselves as possible—but, as the date came nearer, we were both feeling very stressed about that idea.

So, Fate had to step in. My first step in investigating some options was to e-mail a friend whose fiance does some catering, though I wasn't sure how much. She said he only does small events, but recommended I contact a couple she was working with for her own wedding. I called right away and was thrilled when they said they were committed to doing as much handmade and homemade as possible. I'm talking homemade cheeses and butters, all fresh ingredients, as much organic as possible...pretty much exactly in line with what we were hoping for. Plus, they were enthusiastic about our proposed menu and said they could work within our budget. 

After I set up a time for a tasting, I investigated their website, and it turned out to be two people my fiance and I have known for years! We hadn't seen them in awhile and weren't aware they had started this catering business last fall. Funny, great coincidence. After a fantastic meeting and tasting with them last weekend, we were totally convinced. Their food is absolutely delicious, and they are so open and enthusiastic about all of our desires, plus happy to accommodate our budget and other special considerations for venue/style, etc. I so appreciate finding friends and likeminded folks from all over our city to contribute to our wedding. I hope such lucky coincidences happen to everyone out there planning weddings. And make sure to check out Culinaria if you are in the Kansas City area!  

Hello! My most recent tasks surrounding wedding planning revolve around the thrilling world of cups and plates. I am planning to rent utensils, which is the most eco-friendly option, in my opinion. But without a bunch of staff on hand, and with an outdoor wedding, I simply can't have hundreds of dirty, heavy ceramic plates to deal with. But I also don't want chemical plastic plates or nasty Styrofoam ones. Luckily, a number of bamboo plates on the market are attractive and affordable. Though they are disposable, bamboo plates are both made with a rapidly renewable resource and they are biodegradable. I thought cups might be harder to find, but these biodegradable, natural resource ones seem pretty good. I know there are issues with non-food corn use, and I definitely have qualms with corn fuels and plastics, but this is better than the conventional plastic alternative.

Here are some resources I've found. Send me yours!

Biodegradable cups

Bamboo plates

This site has a lot of great deals on bamboo servingware and others...

More bamboo plates