Weddingbee Blog

Dresses, invitations, flowers, food, venue, honeymoon. Yikes!

Cathedral length, inspiration boards, trash the dress, first look, DIY, FI. Huh?

When I got engaged I didn’t have the slightest idea about the world I would suddenly be thrown into. Out of the blue I was sucked right up out of my overalls and transported out of the garden, Alice-In-Wonderland style, into the world of wedding planning.

And I love it. I’m not afraid to say it. I love it! The inspiration boards, color palettes, dress shopping. I love it!

But wait, this isn’t how we live. We are compost-turning, veggie-growing, non-profit-working farmers. We live in a house-truck on a beach in New Zealand. We wear jandals more often than shoes. Let’s face it, we are dirt-lovin’ tree-huggers. We know more about PV (photo-voltaic) than STDs.

But those inspiration boards are just so pretty. I can’t get enough.

Mr. Veggie is a bit ambivalent about the whole wedding thing.

Excited to be a husband? Yes. Excited to have me as his wife? Yes. Not so excited about the planning of an event. Less excited every minute that he sees me spend drooling over pictures found on wedding sites of people’s beautiful weddings. There have been many an eye rolled at my excitement over invitation suites and hair accessories.

His main concern is that we would cast aside our values to put on a celebration just on the one day when we should be vowing to help each other work to uphold those values. His other concern is financial. We are starting up a non-profit, and we’re just the kind of people who enjoy simple things. No need to spend tons of money when what we really love is our family, friends, good food, and fun times. He has a point. Well, he has two points.

But I’m convinced that we can have pretty and practical. Relaxed and amazing. Ethical and wickedly fun. Eco and affordable.

So that’s where we’re at.

We will be getting married in August of 2010 and will have a weekend-long summer camp wedding for 150. We’ll be keeping to a tight budget financially and environmentally, and will be working hard to minimize our wedding’s impact on the earth and our wallet.

I’m so excited to be a bee and share our experience of wedding planning with you. (I still can’t believe I’m a bee. Hooray!) I’ll barter you some advice on veggie gardening for some wedding planning hints. Any takers?