It's a Nice Day for a Green Wedding

So I just got married three weeks ago. It was fabulous. It was all that I hoped for and more. Don’t get me wrong, it was not flawless. There were a few mishaps’; curling irons breaking hours before I am to walk down the aisle, forgetting decorations, the hall having leaks in the ceiling and raining on my guests. But really, the love and magic felt on this day much outweighed these little details. It was really a fairytale wedding.

When starting to plan back in January, although on a very small budget, we decided we were not throwing our values out the window just for a party. If this day were to truly represent us, it would have to represent everything about us.

So here are the ways we had our fairytale wedding, on a small budget, while remembering to respect the environment and keep it green.

1. Food: although this was about 60% of our budget, we decided on a local caterer that used almost all local, organic ingredients. B E Catering www.becatering.com, served fresh locally grown vegetables in the quinoa salad and the beet-goat cheese-lentil salad. The Portobello mushrooms were from the local mushroom farmer. The bison burgers were from a bison farm only a few km’s away and the BBQ’d Lake Trout was caught in the Trent Severn Waterway and was still swimming the day before the wedding! You can’t get fresher than that! For dessert, we had fresh homemade pies from a local, family-run bakery and the ice cream was from Kawartha dairy and was picked up the morning of the wedding from their head office in Bobcaygeon. Even the coffee was fair-trade organic and the coffee cream was also from Kawartha Dairy.
Although this was a big chunk of our budget, it was worth every penny!!

2. The Dress. A girl starts dreaming about her wedding dress at a very young age.  Although the image may change over the years (especially in the amount of puffiness and big shiny bows) one thing remains the same: the way it makes her feel.

It was said to me that when I try ‘the’ dress on, I’ll instantly know. Well, it didn’t happen this way for me. I never got ‘that feeling’. It was quite amusing trying on ridiculous amounts of tulle, giggling with my girlfriend and snapping pictures for blackmail later, but I never found ‘the’ dress. I also could not justify spending that kind of $$ on a dress I would wear only once. It seems like such a waste to me.

Then it hit me. I pulled my mom’s wedding dress out from under my bed, blew the dust off and called my sister-in-law over for some serious consultation. I told her what I wanted to do and if it was possible. She said absolutely.

So instead of blowing my entire budget on a dress I would wear but once and has no sentimental value, I re-vamped my late mother’s 1973 polyester dress that she wore when she was 19!

I scrubbed out the stains in my kitchen sink that were made 37 years prior, but left a few as they were reminders of the fabulous night my parents once had and where I all began! I used the sleeves as side panels and covered the whole dress with an organza overlay, added a few trimmings and voila! My wedding dress. There is no other dress in existence that could have carried such meaning or made me feel as good as I did on my special day. And all for less than $100!!

And what feels even better is that my daughter won’t have two dusty wedding dresses taking up space under her bed.

3. Drinks. The amount of plastic bottles can fill up a recycling bin quite quickly when you have 65+ people consuming. I did not want to be the one responsible for this so we purchased large jugs of water and refilled the guests’ glasses that way. Cartons of juice were purchased instead of individual plastic bottles and cans were purchased instead of plastic bottles.

The beer that was served, with Corona being the only exception, was all Ontario or Quebec brewed. The wine served at the ceremony was from the only organic winery from Niagara-on-the Lake and the wine at the dinner was made locally from our aunt & uncle.

4. Decorations. The DYI list was quite long for our wedding and that’s exactly how we wanted it. You’d be surprised how resourceful one can be with items right at your fingertips.

Earlier in the spring, we lost a large maple tree due to a bad storm. I was sad to see it go and although we will be making good use of the wood in our fireplace, we thought we could do even more. My husband (yes, husband;) made coasters for all the candles out of the small branches and buffet platters out of the large trunk.  We picked out nice twiggy branches and hung paper lanterns from them for both the ceremony and reception. We even made our ‘Tree of Hope’ from the lost tree.

Our centerpieces were raw wooden bushel baskets filled with locally grown produce for everyone to take home making them much for useful than most centerpieces.

The seating chart and seating cards were made by hand out of unbleached paper. I sewed each card with a different design and had my friend Amanda (who has the prettiest handwriting I’ve ever seen) write out each one avoiding dirty printer ink and electricity. 

To save on money, I just rented basic linens and added a nice decorative linen (made by a great friend) that matched the décor of each table. I will be giving these away as gifts or will use them in a future project.

Only a few flowers were purchased from the local florist in order to respect our budget. However, to add to the slim pickings, I strolled down my road and cut a few fresh bull rushes to add to the vases. It was the perfect addition.

5. Wedding Favors. You’d be surprised how expensive these can be!! That is why I wanted something romantic but also something that our guests could use and not get thrown in the garbage as soon as they got home. Our wedding favors were sunflower seeds, ready to be planted in their own eco friendly pot and came in an eco-friendly gift box. The idea of these flowers sprouting, blossoming & growing were to signify the love that was shared this day and for everyday after.

6. Invitations: Nowadays, no matter what the age, everyone is online. So to save trees and money, we asked all of our guests to RSVP by email. A good friend designed our invitations and we got them printed at our local Staples on recyclable paper and sent them off with a tiny map. We opened up a Gmail account specifically for wedding matters and asked everyone to reply to that address. No return envelopes or stamps required.

7. Dishes: All of our dishes for the reception were rented from a local supplier but we needed additional dishes for the reception and the BBQ we had the following day. I frown upon paper plates, so Styrofoam was not even a thought. I knew price had to take a back seat on this one. We purchased all compostable cups, plates and cutlery and although a little pricier, it was worth my sleep at night;)

This blog is to let you couples who are soon to take the plunge know that the words green and budget wedding can be used in the same sentence. We did end up going over our (unrealistic) budget of $5000 but we still kept it well under $10,000, which I have quickly learned is hard to do these days. It is especially hard to do this while keeping it green, as ‘green’ tends to cost more. So yes, in the end we could have probably saved a bit more money but we decided our values were worth more than that. 

(More pictures to come)