Your wedding should be the happiest day of your life and with some careful planning it can make the earth happy too. An eco-wedding doesn’t need to be any less stunning, romantic or memorable than a ceremony and reception that leave a larger footprint on the planet. From simple tricks like car pooling arrangements to knowing the most eco-friendly food and flower choices, planning an eco-wedding is a fun way to show your love for mother earth as well as your future wife or husband.

Paper Products

One of the most overlooked aspects of a wedding is how much paper is used in planning, announcing and holding the event. For a moment, think about all of the different wedding details that involve paper. Save the date cards, invitations to the shower and the ceremony, engagement announcements. The list goes on. One of the best ways to make your special day more eco-friendly is to use recycled paper for these items. Even better would be to have a paperless wedding and utilizing the internet for spreading the word about important dates. There has been a recent influx of websites that cater to the paperless wedding. Brides need not learn HTML to create a personalized and creative website for announcing their wedding.

Flowers

There are two ways to make the flowers at your wedding eco-friendly. The first is to use only locally grown, in season organic blooms. There is a reason spring and summer wedding are traditionally popular. Some of the most beautiful flowers are seasonal this time of year. Organic flowers bought from a local vendor eliminate long distance shipping and toxic pesticides that are harmful to the environment.

The second eco-friendly flower strategy is to use silk flowers. Not only are silk flowers friendly to the environment, they are beautiful and extremely versatile for use in special event decoration. Silk flowers do not wilt, they don’t conform to seasonal restrictions and they are usually less expensive. The cost ratio for silk replicas of rarer flowers can usually result in getting 30% more silk flowers for what fresh blooms would have cost.

Registry

Try adding some eco-wedding touches to your gift registry. While creating your list of requested gifts, try to only register for items you really need. Register with eco-friendly companies for items that you truly plan on using in your every day life. Also, you can supplement gifts for yourself with requests your guests make donations in your name to earth conscious organizations.

Food

One of the most expensive details of a wedding is the food. The reception dinner is also the aspect of the wedding prone to the largest amount of waste. Caterers and venues have the obligation to make sure your guests have enough food to eat while celebrating your special day. The harmful side effect of your food vendor being prepared for very hungry guests is a large amount of food being left over when the day is done. One way to avoid throwing out a lot of perfectly good food is to carefully plan portioning. A buffet may not be the most eco-friendly way to have a wedding dinner. To help cut down on waste, serve your guests a sit down meal with a pre-portioned amount of food.

Food waste, even with plenty of forethought, is inevitable. Not everyone you planned on showing up will arrive, some people may not like the food and others may just not be hungry when the dinner is served. This leaves you with the dilemma of what to do with the left over food. A few phone calls made to local homeless shelters and soup kitchens can solve this problem. The left over food can be packaged up and donated. This is also a good way to save a little money on your wedding planning, as charitable donations are usually tax deductible.

A wedding can be classic, beautiful and elegant without leaving too large of a footprint on the environment. Most tricks and choices that go into creating an eco-wedding actually end up saving you and your fiancé money that can be spent to start your new lives together.