Black Meringue

Green Weddings

Forget white, green is the colour of modern, eco-conscious brides, argues Emma Field

Lavish receptions with imported flowers and champagne are out; recycled wedding dresses and conflict-free rings are in. The 21st century bride’s blushes should be caused by the drunken lechery of elderly uncles, not the gargantuan size of her big day’s carbon footprint.

The average UK wedding emits 14.5 tonnes of carbon. Compare that to the average Brit’s annual footprint of 10 tonnes and you can see why it’s worth making a commitment to the environment on your wedding day. Going green isn’t just as simple as carbon-counting though. It’s all about taking responsibility for your decisions by making ethical choices that benefit communities, avoiding unnecessary waste and minimising your overall environmental impact. And if it’s cost that’s putting you off, consider this: the average UK wedding now costs a shocking £17,000! The good news is that choosing to have eco-conscious nuptials isn’t as difficult as it sounds, and it’s a big fat myth that your big fat green wedding has to cost the earth, financially as well as environmentally.

The rings

Traditionally, it all starts with a shiny new ring. But while that sparkling piece of bling may have put a smile on your face, it’s almost certainly had a detrimental effect on others. Gold and diamond mining can be hugely destructive to the land, communities and the workers who extract it. Fortunately there are a number of alternatives.

Companies such as GreenKarat are working hard to give the discerning consumer a choice when it comes to jewellery, and use only recycled precious metals in their products. By doing so they hope to reduce the demand for new gold, so there’s less of a stimulus for mining. Their jewellery comes with a Green Assay tag which records the history of each design. The process has yet to be perfected but it’s a start, allowing consumers to express their ecological preferences in a way that will become increasingly difficult for unethical gold and diamond corporations to ignore.

Another option is to commission your own unique ring from an ethical jeweller. Try April Doubleday, who sources her own material and uses lab-stones, gold-plating and fair-trade gold from Columbia. But the easiest alternative is to buy a second-hand, or pre-loved, ring from your local antiques dealer. This way you are recycling, minimising the carbon footprint of materials used and supporting local businesses.

See www.greenkarat.com and www.aprildoubleday.com.

The dress

There are very few off-the-peg eco-conscious dresses available, which means going green with your frock can be one of the more expensive parts of your wedding. Wholly Jo’s makes 100% environmentally-conscious bespoke wedding gowns using organic, fair-trade and cruelty-free fabrics. Joanne Mackin, the brains behind the boutique, makes the dresses herself and uses local independent services. The prices can’t compete with the high street, but they’re guaranteed not to have been made in a sweatshop or flown thousands of miles to the UK.

Recycling wedding dresses is a great idea, and cheap too. But if your mum’s old wedding dress is not really your style, consider taking it apart, starting from scratch with the material and adding a few twists and beads of your own. If you’re not so handy with a needle yourself, employ a local seamstress.

eBay has loads of bridal gowns for sale. If you’re lucky you could pick up a vintage dress for a fraction of the price you’d normally expect to pay. Just be careful and avoid buying one that will be shipped in from the other side of the world (check the item location).

So many wedding dresses, after being worn just once, live out the rest of their days in the back of a wardrobe. Oxfam is trying to change that. A few of its shops have bridal departments where they stock gowns donated by designers, shops and brides who would rather give their dress to a good cause than see it go to waste. Oxfam aims to keep its prices at around 30% of what you’d be charged on the high street, and there’s quite a demand. So even if you don’t get your dress from Oxfam, be sure to donate yours when you can bear to part with it. The money made from the scheme goes towards Oxfam’s many programmes, helping to provide long-lasting solutions to worldwide poverty and suffering.

If your dress accounts for only a small proportion of your budget and the high street is your only option, Monsoon has a gorgeous selection of bridal wear and is more eco-friendly than most other clothing chains. Enamore has a marvellous collection of lingerie and accessories made from materials such as 100% organic silk, hemp and silk charmeuse, and soya jersey. They are available online or from a number of boutiques across the UK.

See www.wholly-jo.co.uk, www.ebay.co.uk, www.oxfam.org, www.monsoon.co.uk and www.enamore.co.uk.

The venue

Finding a venue that will cater for your eco-values can be tricky. Thankfully, there are a few places that do, and for those who want something a bit out of the ordinary there is even more choice. But don’t forget that the traditional church wedding can be one of the greenest options around, especially if the reception is held nearby.

Hotels are slowly cottoning on to how important their environmental credentials are to couples tying the knot. Penrhos Court Country Hotel, near the Welsh border in Hertfordshire, was one of the first hotels to provide eco-weddings for discriminating couples. Your entire wedding can be held at the hotel, parts of which date from 1280. It has a civil ceremony licence plus 15 bedrooms, two apartments and a number of rooms suitable for receptions, such as the medieval Cruck Hall. Penrhos prides itself on its seasonal organic fare, and its wedding menus are inspired by foods traditionally connected with love, passion and marriage.

Bedruthan Steps Hotel in Cornwall has some strict self-imposed sustainability codes and is working to ensure its environmental performance continually improves. It sources local seasonal produce, offsets its carbon emissions and cleans its beach. It also has solar panels, cloakrooms with light sensors and dual-flush toilets.

Marquees, another mainstay of glamorous weddings, can be surprisingly un-green. They usually need to be transported in a large petrol-powered vehicle and then need heating, which requires huge amounts of electricity. The Bimble Inn is a great alternative. This giant portable teepee runs its own sound and light system with solar and wind power. It also runs an organic bar. “Most of the couples who hire it are festival types who want to have a wedding in a festival style, or are after something different,” says Mike, who runs the scheme. The teepee is transported in an old army truck that runs carbon-neutrally on bio diesel.

See www.penrhos.co.uk, www.bedruthan.com and www.bimbleinn.com.

The presents

In the 1960s, only around two percent of couples lived together before marriage. Nowadays it’s nearer 80%, meaning there is less need for household items such as the ubiquitous toaster, for years the most popular wedding gift in both the UK and the USA. This has opened the way for alternative gift lists that give to those in need on behalf of the bride and groom. One of the most popular is Oxfam Unwrapped, which has already provided over a million gifts to 47 countries. Gifts start at £5 and include textbooks, condoms (in conjunction with HIV/AIDS education), counselling sessions, whole mango plantations, alpacas, goats, donkeys, teachers’ kits and mosquito nets. It’s really easy to set up and can all be done online. Other websites offering similar services include The Good Gifts Catalogue, Carbon Footprint and The Woodland Trust, which gives you the opportunity to save acres of rainforest. The Alternative Wedding List is affiliated with charities such as Sight Savers International, Farm Africa, Barnados and Medecins Sans Frontiers. It is operated by Give It Ltd, who also offers a wedding website for £99. Once all the administrative fees have been covered, the rest of the money goes to charity.

For those of you who aren’t yet kitted out for conjugal bliss, there are a number of websites offering goodies for your eco-conscious life together. Ecocentric and The Natural Store are just two of a growing number of eco-product websites dedicated to proving that going green doesn’t have to mean compromising on style.

See www.goodgifts.org, www.carbonfootprint.com, www.thewoodlandtrust.org.uk, www.thealternativeweddinglist.co.uk, www.ecocentric.co.uk and www.thenaturalstore.co.uk.

The stationery

Weddings can involve reams and reams of paper. Invitations, RSVPs, maps, menus, place-cards and thank-you notes all add up, and the least that can be done is to use recycled paper. The Natural Wedding Company has a gorgeous range of wedding stationery printed on recycled paper, natural cotton, linen, voile or straw. The designs include some really cute fabric hearts, butterflies and ribbons.

Stationery is an area where you can be really innovative and actually end up saving money. If you’ve got the time and a creative streak you could make it all yourself, reusing paper and any bits and bobs you can gather. Otherwise, set up a wedding website with sites such as Give It or Wedquarters, and send out email invitations with links to your site. Ask your guests to RSVP with the click of a mouse rather than the lick of an envelope. The internet and other digital methods are great ways to avoid wasting paper. Wedding websites can include RSVPs, directions, menu options, eco-conscious guest accommodation suggestions, public transport links, gift lists and photos when the big day is finally over.

To help the environment and your budget, double-up your place-cards as wedding favours. Luggage tags make great unisex favours, as do personalised key rings, book marks and hand-painted candleholders.

See www.thenaturalstore.co.uk, www.giveit.co.uk and www.wedquarters.com

The favours

To some couples wedding favours are a complete waste of time and money, and that in itself is an environmental plus! But to others they’re an essential part of a wedding, and a simple way of showing gratitude for friends’ and families’ support.

Saplings are becoming a popular alternative to the usual edibles and keepsakes. Wedding Tree Favours will supply baby trees in blister packs for only £3.50 each. The type of trees depend on the time of year: in winter there’s usually holly and yew, with oak, beech, crab-apple, silver birch, willow and horse chestnut common during other seasons. The seeds are gathered by hand and the saplings can be used as place-names for an extra 50p each. If many of your guests are flying in, this is a particularly suitable favour as a 100-year-old oak, for example, stores up to 11 tonnes of carbon, helping to offset a lifetime of flights. The trees can last several days in their blister packs, giving guests plenty of time to get them home and planted.

Chocolates are always a popular favour, and organic or fair-trade chocolates are easy to come by. The Fairtrade website has a list of suppliers to choose from, so it’s practically guilt-free chocolate! Another option is natural pamper items. Lush will let you choose your favourite natural, handmade cosmetics (absolutely not tested on animals) and it’ll gift-wrap them for an extra 99p. Its bath-bombs are popular and deservedly so. If you think your guests really don’t need another bit of tat to fill up their homes, Good Gifts (see the earlier section on presents) has come up with a range of smaller charity favours priced from £3 to £9. The gifts, which include a paraffin lamp for a hut in Africa, are presented on a card enclosed in a red envelope.

See www.wedding-tree-favours.com, www.fairtrade.org.uk, and www.lush.co.uk.

The transport

There are hundreds of ways to get to the church on time without relying on an engine. Ever heard of the groom who turned up in a rickshaw? The traditional horse and carriage can hold its environmentally-friendly head up high. You could also ride a horse, cycle or even walk. Get creative. Roller-skates anyone?

It’s not just your own travel you need to consider. Think about each guest’s individual carbon footprint. While it’s unlikely you’ll be able to force everyone to ride a bike to the reception, you can make your eco-conscious preferences clear and hope they take them into account. Include public transport options on your wedding invites or website; it’s encouraging without being patronising. You could also include a link to Liftshare, which aims to help users save money and reduce traffic and carbon emissions. Guests can sign up to offer a lift or request one, and Liftshare will match them with others going the same way. The service is free and hopefully people carry on using it afterwards. Include links to sites such as Climatecare to encourage guests to offset their journeys’ carbon emissions too. If you have a number of guests flying in from abroad and money in your budget (think of what you’re saving by making your own favours and walking to the church), you could suggest offsetting their emissions for them.

You could even arrange a bus to take everyone from the ceremony to the reception at the same time, or make sure the two venues are close enough for people to walk.

See www.liftshare.co.uk and www.climatecare.org.

The flowers

Many flowers are imported from abroad, racking up thousands of air-miles in the process. In 2005 the UK imported 19,000 tonnes of flowers from Kenya, creating 33,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in the process. Then there are the pesticides that pollute the ground, contaminate drinking water and damage flower farm employees (sometimes children) who work in unventilated areas to consider. Not to mention the huge amounts of water diverted from people and countrysides that really need it. Knowing all that, can you really toss your bouquet with a guilt-free heart?

One alternative is to use paper or silk flowers. Sia Home Fashion has a stunning wedding range including bouquets, table decorations, favours and hairpieces. They look very realistic and will last as long as your memories of your big day. You could also give them away as favours. Plus, there’ll be no problems for hay-fever sufferers!

If you must have real blooms, source locally-grown flowers, or go to your local florists the day before your wedding and ask for any flowers that are being thrown away. It’s a bit risky, but you could end up with a great variety of flowers and remain smug in the knowledge you’ve saved them from a pointless existence. If you can get to London, Covent Garden Flower Market is a great source.

There is always the option of growing your own. This requires a bit of forward-thinking but it’s the most environmentally-friendly way. Plant easy-to-grow perennials that work well as cut flowers, such as montbretia, gladioli, butterfly tulips and sword lily. Remember to get the right colour if you’re working to a colour scheme. The best thing is they’ll bloom year after year, so you’ll be reminded of your special day every spring. If your wedding is too soon for that, you could always head out into nature and collect some foliage – just make sure you don’t ransack a small area. Turn it into a wedding gathering by asking guests to be involved. Everyone loves a trip to the countryside!

See www.sia-homefashion.co.uk.

The confetti

It seems so harmless, but confetti can stick around on the streets for months, and the paper it’s made from is saturated with chemicals and colourings. When you think of it like that, throwing confetti is tantamount to littering. Fortunately there are a few companies, such as the Real Flower Confetti Co and Shropshire Petals, who are trying to change all that by producing natural, biodegradable petals for throwing. The petals are from delphiniums and both companies produce flowers in a range of colours that are hand-picked to avoid bruising the petals.

Of course, you could always make your own. Go to your local florist again, shortly before they close and preferably on a Friday or Saturday night, ask for all their old flowers, pick off the petals and dry them. Other options requiring less effort include rice, wheat and birdseed.

See www.confettidirect.co.uk, www.shropshirepetals.co.uk and www.thenaturalstore.co.uk.

The food

Feeding all your guests accounts for a large portion of the budget. Add to that the preconception that organic food costs alarmingly more than the non-organic and it’s no surprise that even the greenest brides can be put off by eco-menus. Yes, organic food probably will cost slightly more, but there are good reasons for that: the yield is generally 20% to 40% lower than non-organic produce; the prices of ‘conventional’ food have been artificially lowered by subsidies; and organic farming is more labour-intensive so production costs are higher (see www.organicfarmers.org.uk for more information about this). But surely it’s worth paying that little bit extra for what more and more of us are seeing as the healthier, tastier and more eco-friendly option.

Having environmentally-friendly food on your wedding menu doesn’t necessarily have to blow your budget. Some experts argue that sourcing produce from your home turf (ideally within 20km) is not only cheaper but also greener than going organic, as this minimises ‘food miles’ as well as eliminating air-miles. A good local caterer should be able to sort this out for you, using seasonal and locally sourced food.

If your budget really won’t stretch to a sumptuous organic spread, you could always do a ‘bring and share’ where guests make food and bring it along to share in a buffet-style banquet. The dishes could double-up as wedding presents.

Then there’s the wedding cake. If you know anyone who is handy with a piping bag then why not ask them to make it for you, using only local or organic, fair-trade ingredients. If you can’t find anyone willing to take on the mighty responsibility of the symbolic cake, The Organic Chocolate Cake Company does a heavenly range of wedding cakes. Prices start at just over £200 including delivery and set-up, and they can also make cakes to your own design.

See www.toccc.co.uk.

The drink

Getting eco-alcohol can be tricky, but fortunately British wine has come a long way in the past decade and is no longer the laughing stock of the wine-producing world. BuyOrganics has an eclectic selection of British organic wines, such as the Limney Horsmonden Dry White from Kent, as well as a good selection of organic wines from around the world, including organic sparkling wines and champagnes. If you choose not to buy British organic, try to get French, as it won’t have had as far to travel as its Californian or Australian cousins.

Although not necessarily organic, there are a number of British wine producers who are making waves in the vintners’ world. Ridgeview Merret Fitzrovia Brut Rosé 2004, a sparkling pink, and Stanlake Park Kings Fumé 1999, a dry white, are two ideal wedding wines that made it on The Independent’s Ten Best British Wines list earlier this year.

See www.buyorganics.co.uk.

BM