Flooding, forest fires, increasingly aggressive weather - all these repercussions of climate change have meant that the impact we’re having on our planet has become impossible to ignore. Because of this, more and more couples are evaluating their wedding checklist to assess the cost of the details on the environment around us. The trend for sustainable weddings in the UK has gone viral with brides embracing eco-friendly chic.
We are only human though right, so we still want our wedding to be the best it can be so how do you have an eco-friendly wedding without having to make compromises? Our latest blog post provides the definitive guide to sustainable swaps that will keep your wedding fabulous without adding a hefty carbon price tag.
Read on to find out more.
Second Hand Savvy
Think about it. A lot of the components of your wedding day will be used for a grand total of 12 hours. At most. So you need to consider your return on investment for every piece of decor, clothing, accessories you buy, and can those items be bought from a bride who has had her wedding and is now stuck with a hundred lanterns, vases or multiple leftover packs of confetti? You would be surprised what will come up if you type in “wedding” into the search box on sites such as Gumtree, Preloved, and Shpock for example. Rustic jars for candles, wedding umbrellas, decorative wooden crates, wedding dresses, hats, place card holders - you name the detail you’re looking for and you can most likely get it at a fraction of the cost (or even free!) on one of these sites. Do you really want to be spending hundreds of pounds on those extra touches when that money can be redirected to better uses (like your hen do or honeymoon for example)?
Sometimes you will find that wedding venues themselves flog items they no longer need (table cloths, chair covers, glasses, etc.) as they refresh their inventory. With a quick scroll of these preloved websites, you may be able to kit our your wedding day for pennies and save almost new items from being relegated to landfill.
Think Beyond the Wedding
Consider if you can kill two birds with one stone. Do you have a garden for example? Could your floral arrangements be created from plants, shrubs, ornamental trees, and grasses that could then be planted out in your garden after the big day as a forever memory that grows with your relationship? Imagine established, potted cherry blossoms dotted around your wedding venue, potted orchids, lavender, or even fragrant herbs as centerpieces, hanging baskets of ivy, crocuses, and peonies - how effective would a display of living plants be! And the best thing is that it would most likely still be cheaper than getting bouquets of cut flowers which will sadly end up on the compost heap straight after the big day.
Wedding Favours
Traditionally wedding favours have been a symbol of good luck however whilst in the past a wedding favour would be comprised of a single sugar cube per guest (signifying a sign of wealth) nowadays they have evolved to become more and more lavish. To some, they may seem like a monumental waste of money however if you feel passionate about wanting to give your guests a memento of your day, try to make sure that it’s plastic-free and not disposable. Some of the best ideas we’ve seen when it comes to wedding favours include samples of local produce like honey, seeds of wildflowers, and cuttings of houseplants. We’ve even seen couples buy a tree for each guest and plant it in a grove they purchased to celebrate their wedding - at no more cost than favours usually cost. How memorable and climate savvy is that? There are many projects across Scotland - such as Trees For Life - that aim to rewild the highlands with native trees and offer conscientious couples a chance to buy their own woodland grove to mark the occasion. You can even have your wedding register with them so that your guests can buy you trees rather than household items as wedding gifts which you may not need if you’ve been living together and already have a fully kitted-out house before you get married.
Rent a Dress
You would not believe what you can find yourself wearing on your wedding day if you chose to rent rather than buy your gown. Always wanted to wear a couture gown but the realities of your bank account wouldn’t allow for such an extravagance? Rent it! Websites like the aptly named Something Borrowed allow you to borrow your dress from 4 days to 2 weeks and you can find yourself wearing a £5000 gown for a smidge of the cost.
Renting a gown means that, not only will you save money, you won’t need to dry clean, preserve and store the dress which can be quite a hassle (and costly) in itself. Wedding dresses are one of the most expensive elements of the big day and, whilst renting the groom’s outfit is considered common practice, brides have historically been more reluctant to participate in this way of doing things. That’s all changing however and now you’re probably as likely to see a bride in a borrowed dress as you are in a bought one. Great for the climate and for your bank balance.
Eco-Friendly Wedding Venues and Suppliers
Of course, there’s no point in you making all the effort of organising a sustainable wedding if your suppliers then undo your hard work by not assessing their own practices. It goes without saying that if you want to have an eco-friendly wedding, you have to keep it local - jetting your guests halfway across the world is not a planet-friendly plan, no matter how much money you donate to “offset” the carbon emissions you generate to get to your foreign destination. Fortunately, we’re blessed to live in one of the most beautiful countries on the planet, full of eco-centric suppliers so you should be spoiled for choice when going through your wedding checklist.
For sustainable wedding venues, you may consider Folkerton Mill in South Lanarkshire or the stunning Ecology Centre in Fife, which are both chic and climate-conscious. For wedding food, you can’t get better than Hickory weddings for whom sustainability is at the forefront of everything they do. If you do want to go down the route of floral arrangements then you can still do so sustainably. Tupelo Tree are florists who take their eco-responsibilities seriously - they plant trees to offset their carbon emissions, only use local flowers, and recycle as much as they can, and that’s just the tip of their eco-cred iceberg!
The options for eco-focused suppliers are many, so you have plenty to choose from.
Hopefully, this handy guide has given you food for thought and peace of mind that having an eco-friendly wedding does not mean compromising on your dreams. With a few tweaks here and there, your big day will be sustainability stunning and you can relax whilst polishing your halo.