Making a Destination Wedding Green
July 23rd, 2008 @ 1:45 pm by Mrs. Pinot Noir
One of the biggest pieces of green wedding advice that I have read, is to reduce the amount of travel (especially air travel) due to its impact on the environment.
As you have probably figured out, this is a piece of green advice that we did not follow. We are having a destination wedding and 55 of the 60 guests will need to fly to San Francisco. I wish that we could have had a local wedding, but this just wasn’t an option for us. My family lives in Minnesota, Mr. PN’s family lives on the East coast and our friends are all over the country. We decided early on that the only way to make everyone happy was for everyone to travel. We had dreamed about getting married in Napa Valley and we knew the perfect venue to bring together our family and friends.
We have incorporated many other green travel aspects into our wedding such as transporting guests by bus, using a limo company with a “green fleet” and choosing a hotel location that is mass-transit friendly (eliminating the need to rent a car).
If you are concerned about the travel impact of your wedding you can choose to purchase a carbon offset for a portion of your guest travel, your wedding event or your honeymoon. Offsetting guest travel would be a great alternative to the traditional favors! Each site calculates the amount of carbon a little differently. Here are two reputable carbon offset organizations with wedding calculators:
You can calculate and offset the carbon impact of your wedding in their ZeroCarbon™ Weddings section. The calculation takes into account the number of guests, number flying, average flight distance, number of cars, average driving distance, and the number of hotel night stays.
TerraPass also has a wedding calculator to determine a wedding output. Their calculator is more specific than Carbon Fund. It considers four different sources of emissions: airline emissions from guest travel (short, medium and long flights), automobile emissions from guest travel (number of cars and average miles), energy use in hotel rooms, and the energy use for the wedding itself (DJ, caterer, temperature control, lighting, etc.).
The purchase of a wedding TerraPass includes “a certificate of offset with a handsome frame for display at your wedding (valued at $40, including shipping). The frame is made from salvaged Douglas fir using environmentally responsible materials and business practices. After your wedding, the frame makes a great keepsake.”
How much travel will your event require?
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8 Responses to “Making a Destination Wedding Green”
We’re doing the Zero Carbon wedding as well. Our guests will be 50/50 in vs. out of town. Also, we have the ceremony/reception/(green certified) hotels all within walking distance, so there’s no transport needed once everyone is here.
There are a great deal of organizations that offset weddings. Some offset providers just do “events” and not specifically weddings. You should look for an offset provider that has an easy event calculator, trying to figure it out one at a time can be a nightmare. You can also encourage your guests to buy offsets. You can check out my blog and get information about MANY U.S. based carbon offset providers
Thanks so much for this post. Most of our guests are out-of-towners, and I’m trying very hard to be green in as many other ways as possible, especially using small local businesses and doing some of the same mass-transportation options you are . Also, a lot of our guests are driving a few hours instead of flying cross-country, which is at least slightly better.
This would be a neat idea for favors, actually… instead of donating money for charity, you could do a carbon offset for the environment! That’s something I’d definitely think about doing.
hi, andar here, i just read your post. i like very much. agree to you, sir.
[...] of our guests have to fly to San Francisco and will stay in a hotel for several nights. I have blogged before about using carbon credits as a way to offset your wedding travel and [...]
Mrs. Pinot Noir, New York/Napa Valley
Age and Occupation: 24, Health Educator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Market Researcher
Engagement Date: November 10, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: June 25, 2008
Venue: Auberge du Soleil
About Me: I am a Minnesota raised, NYC transplant planning a destination wedding in Napa. I'm balancing my love for the environment and my hubby-to-be's love for tradition to create our "green wedding in disguise." Our wedding will include local food and wine, antique touches and lots of love and laughter. When wedding planning isn't taking up my free time (and money) I love to read, cook, workout, watch baseball and travel! Follow along in my adventure as I attempt to plan an eco-friendly and socially responsible wedding (with eco-oblivious Mr. Pinot Noir).
Great post. This is something we definitely considered too, as 100% of our guests (and us!) are coming from OOT. Thanks for the links- I need to do more research on this!