The day has arrived

Hello,

My name is "Bwings" and I'm getting married!

Alright, so maybe I am looking for an excuse to announce it! Maybe I just like to keep Monday's posts light. Or maybe I am looking for a way to direct you to my alternate blog! No matter what the reason for today's topic it is the topic. So let's continue forward.

Keeping with the topic of going green and being green I decided to look into ways I could have a green wedding. When you think of a wedding it is one of the least green events. It's also the least economical for a household. $600-$1,000,000 spent on a dress that will most likely be worn once. Not very wise! Then there is all the wasted food that will most likely result from the reception. As beautiful and exciting as a wedding can be it still maintains mass potential as an exceptionally wasteful event.

If you're having a wedding chances are you or your groom have envisioned this day for many, many years! You've imagined the flowers upon flowers down the aisle. Your silk dress with it's silk train leading out the door. Candles lit all over the church or hall. A cake that was taller than you and three different types of chicken with enough for seconds, thirds and left overs for everybody. The question is then posed, how much are you willing to sacrifice to make a wedding green? How expensive is an organic wedding? How much or how little will make you hypocritical towards all your morals for the day? There is no easy answer, it's all preference. Yet, one thing is readily available, greener solutions to the very things you desired and in most cases you are actually saving yourself some money.

I have only touched the surface today on all my green wedding options. With the little bit I've looked into I imagine it'll not only save my values and standards from a blemish but also my wallet from bleeding out. We wouldn't want that to happen, now would we?

Here are a few of the ideas I've come up with so far to be more cost-efficient and green, I feel most are obvious:

• Bonbonniere - In case you don't know what a bonbonniere is, it is the gifts or trinkets you send home with your guests. Little things like candles with your names on them, small containers of bubbles...with your names on them. Maybe a bag of candy. Bag of seeds etc. In this case the goal would simply be to make sure the gifts were eco-friendly ie: not a candle. Or if it was a candle one that is more eco-friendly (see previous post) I do think I will hand out eco-friendly gifts while not being pushy eco-friendly gifts. I'm not about to hand out small "go vegetarian" booklets, but I might give a gift of seeds to be planted or maybe some eco-friendly bubble solutions that do not have and EDTA in them.
  
• Dinner - This one is simple, don't over cook and go vegetarian. Will I be doing that? Yes and no. I'll certainly not be cooking too much and YES I will offer a massive amount of vegetarian friendly food. Hello, I'm a vegetarian!!! My daughter is vegetarian and my fiancée has always been on the fence. So why on earth would I make it so we were only getting salad while our guests dined on the finest death platters we could afford.
  I plan to have a middle eastern food platter. The food is delicious and largely vegetarian. That doesn't mean I'm going to be filling my guests with egg plants and chickpeas with no carcass on their menu. Of course we'll have chicken, and likely cow, we'll simply have more vegetarian options. Honestly there are only three main animals that people dine on regularly, Pigs, Cows and Chickens. Why on earth should there be seven different variations of dead cow at one event and only one salad? I'm not going to make my wedding about converting the carnivores in my circle, that simply isn't my style. I'm also not going to violate an entire barn of animals either. I feel I'll be fair and offer an opportunity for my carnivorous family and friends to experience alternative vegetarian meals. A lot of people believe if you're a vegetarian you eat tofu everyday. I have not digested tofu in 2 years and when I do it's usually exceptionally random. There really are good meals out there for us eggplant lovers. I also don't eat eggplant!
  
• Dresses - Buying a bunch of dresses that people are going to wear only once seems wasteful, yes. There are those who buy them from a second hand establishment or agree simply to wear one of their own and have matching colors. Again, I don't think I'll be doing that. I have promised my bridesmaids they won't have to wear anything...that will end up on a "bad bridesmaid dress" website. I keep my promises. I would like to pick out dresses that my bridesmaids can wear out after the wedding for years to come. Assuming they fit for years to come, that part I can't control
  
• THE DRESS - Then there is THE dress. Of course one could go vintage, or wear their mothers. No offense to my mother but giant frilly shoulders is no longer the style. As for vintage from other family members, we are not the , er.. same...body type. I want my dress to be my own so although vintage may be an option it won't be heirloom vintage.
  There is also the option of purchasing or having your dress custom made using eco fabrics such as cotton, hemp, bamboo and Peace Silk. Peace silk is made by harvesting the fibre after the silkworm have left their cocoons rather than boiling the silkworms alive. Certainly a much more animal friendly method. It is a bit more expensive at roughly $25 a yard. But I'm short, I don't need that many yards right? As long as there is still something left to the imagination right? Right?!
  
• Flowers - Face it, chances are there are going to be a lot of flowers at your wedding. Most conventional flowers are grown using irrigation and often hazardous chemical pesticides/fertilizers. There are a lot of options in major cities for eco-minded florists who specialize in organic or more environmental and sustainable growing methods. You can ask the florist if they are eco-friendly VeriFlora, Florverde and FLP certified flowers. {see below for some Canadian options}. If organic isn't possible you can always try to find in-season, locally-grown flowers. In Canada this would mean a wedding between May and October. I imagine I'll just have fewer flowers than some of the traditional weddings. I will have the bouquets and boutonnieres but I'm not planning to be wed in a church so I don't picture pews decorated with flowers.
  
• Gifts - Okay, this one doesn't stand out as quickly to me. But there, I suppose, is the issue of wrapping paper and luxury or frilly gifts. A thought would be to request some donate instead to an eco-charity. I don't imagine that is what we're going to do. However we might offer it up as an alternative to a gift. It's a nice idea but I don't feel pots, pans and millions of toasters is that wasteful of a gift. A boat maybe, but not a spatula.
  
• Invitations - This was an obvious one, for each invitation you send there will be an rsvp coming back. Depending on the size of your wedding party that is a lot of paper waste. I don't know about anybody else but I don't want to e-mail my invites. A solution might be to have the RSVP's be electronic. I don't know which I will do. I imagine I'll go the standard route with RSVP's coming back in paper form. I don't feel too awful terrible about this as my wedding should be well under 100 attendants. Another save would be to print the invites on recycled or plantable paper.  I'll likely do the first although the later sounds really interesting. It is paper that is embedded with seeds so once planted will grow wildflowers.
  

Organic Florists:

Toronto area, EcoFlora, Whole Food Market 
Vancouver area, Amoda Flowers ,  Capers Community Market/Whole Foods 
New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, Canadian Sierra Eco website .

So as I said, fairly obvious for most of those and it is all personal preference. Even I won't be sacrificing it all but I will certainly be saving a dollar or two on the other things.

Well, I have invites to write and dates to pick, so until later this is all from your friendly neighborhood hippie mom.