Wedding Blog

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

( Go hug a tree like I did during our e-pics! )

Lately I’ve been thinking about ways to make our wedding more ecologically friendly. Because we’ve chosen a venue that we are celebrating for its pristine, natural beauty, it only makes sense to ensure that our celebration leaves a minimal footprint. Moreover, we know that we’re asking a lot of our guests to travel from around the country to join us in Montana, and that their travel has a heavy environmental toll. It’s important to us to pay back that toll and give something back in return.

To look for green wedding ideas I turned to (where else?) my trusty Internets and found a few truly inspiring websites:

• Ecomall has a simple but comprehensive list of green wedding tips. No frills and I love it!
• This guide by Treehugger features the most highly effective ways to green your wedding and do more
• Portovert provides a wealth of green wedding inspiration, particularly slideshows and vendors
• The Great Green Wedding is a great directory of resources broken down by category
• Green Elegance Weddings backs all of its advice with research and plenty of real-life references to help you make your wedding budget more environmentally friendly
• Emily Anderson runs Eco-Chic Weddings, a blog full of ideas for crafty and conscious brides

I’m really happy that green weddings have become so trendy… There’s obviously no shortage of information out there and I’d love to hear your additions to the list above!

As for turning this inspiration into implementation, we’re still brainstorming ideas that will work well for us. Here’s a brief rundown of our ideas so far:

First and foremost, we’re using small and sustainable businesses like the Polebridge mercantile for catering, beverages, and wedding cake. We’re also purchasing local and organic food, like Montana beef, trout, and produce, where possible. We hope that our florist will be able to use seasonal flowers from Montana greenhouses, but this remains to be seen.

We’re reducing waste by opting for linens over paper napkins and silverware over disposable utensils. We are considering the possibility of offering biodegradable utensils if more cost-effective and eco-friendly than silverware. For invitations, we have chosen to use 100% cotton or chlorine-free paper and have created designs that minimize waste and maximize printed space.

We’ll be cutting down on emissions and the impact on unpaved local roads by suggesting that our guests utilize shuttles from the airport to Glacier and free shuttles offered by the National Park Service within park property. We’re also offering our guests the option of riding a schoolbus (beep beep!) to and from the wedding. And though we didn’t plan with this in mind, it also helps that there is no travel required between our ceremony and reception!

We’re reusing a large portion of our decor. I’ve been collecting glass canisters and mason jars from family, thrift shops, and antique markets to use as flower vases and candle holders. I’m also collecting cans to make a ton of “cantern” luminaries for our reception. You can also bet that I will resell the decorations after the wedding is over, rather than discarding them.

Of course, we will recycle whatever we can, but we have to focus on the other, more important parts of the waste hierarchy because recycling in Montana isn’t always available. But we’ll be sure to talk with our venue beforehand to see what can be recycled.

Finally, we’re giving back by suggesting that our guests donate to the Glacier National Park Fund in our name instead of buying us housewares. We are also looking for ways to give favors that benefit the Park Service, a local business like the Polebridge Mercantile, or area artists.

We’ve put as many of these ideas as possible into motion and I can’t wait to get started on the rest. I’ll be sharing the details on many of these projects as they come to fruition. If you have any suggestions for us, I’m all ears!

What are you doing to make your wedding a little greener?