Tuesday, May 08, 2012

How We're Trying to Green Up Our Wedding

Throughout the planning process we have been trying to make choices that would reduce the environmental impact of our wedding. Below we've listed each of the major items and given a brief description of what changes to the normal system we've made. This process has been extremely interesting, and has highlighted the extent of the impact that wedding can have.

Rings: recycled gold, ISO 14000 Canadian diamond, local eco-jeweler 

Invitations: local producer, bullfrog powered, enviro 100 paper - FSC 100% post-consumer

Food: local where possible, vegetarian &| local salmon, delicious wine, organic where possible.

Cake: local and gluten-free and vegan portions - vegan icing

Venue: apparently a very green hotel chain in Canada - green key 4 key rating, City of Fredericton Greenshops Program - Gold member, outdoor venue, all at one venue - reduce associated travel

Makeup and prep: Kaitlyn will probably get a Thai Yoga Massage and maybe some Reiki beforehand but nothing else :) Kaitlyn doesn't really wear makeup so that is yet to be determined.

Apparel:
Dress: materials, maker, re-use, shoes, bridesmaids' dresses are individual and re-usable
Tuxedos: renting

Decorations:
Flowers: local, indigenous, living --- bringing in live trees
Other: beach glass, local dulse, river stones, re-usable tubes, soy and beeswax candles, reusable birch placemats

Music:
Local groups - promote local artists (bagpiper, Steve Peacock, Fiddler, Vinyl 2 Bits + some recorded songs)

Carbon Offsets:
Travel: flights vs driving, offset,
Bullfrog: first wedding in Canada! Hall-a?
Walking to the wedding :P 

Registry: local business registry, quality vs quantity, organic, natural fabrics, items from buyers' locale

Cons: dun, dun, duuuuunnnnn.... we tried our  best but we still fell short in some areas... 


Size of wedding: we are having a massive party for our wedding and a lot of people from far are coming. This obviously increases CO2 emissions with travel but New Brunswick has been touted as the "Drive Through Province" (but really, "don't drive right through!!!" ref. D.Myles) and there will be many people who have never stepped foot in this Province.. and they can't drive through!

Printing: digital so we need to use toner due to the cost increase, which is around 300% increase in cost, to use print.

Venue: we really wanted an outdoor wedding but we wanted to make this even as accessible as possible to everyone.

Dress and tux materials: Dress material is not local, tux isn't natural

Diamond: From Northern Canada via San Francisco

Food: Not necessarily all organic or local, which is a restriction of our venue

Wine: Italian (but what can we say? we are wine snobs :P)

Decorations: We wanted to have it as outside as possible but trucking the trees and everything living... ?

Flowers: The only flower we could find that was indigenous is actually from Nova Scotia - HA. But we tried to get them to produce them organically but there isn't a demand. People would rather see organic flowers come from afar, apparently...  

Paper: We tried really hard to only use paper for our invites (save the dates were electronic) and even our invites have an option for either electronic or telephone RSVP, so no paper reply. However, we feel we should have programs, whcih will increase the paper consumption but will be from Taylor Printing again. And, our Thank Yous for our engagement presents are from a local artist.

Hen/Stag parties: We are not having hen or stag parties at bars, instead we are opting for the Friday before (we are getting married on a Sunday, remember!) to have a day-long cottage day/party with our friends, at beautiful Grand Lake. Windsurfing, kayaking, canoeing, swimming and being in nature!!!!

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