Traditionally, staging a wedding has always been a very resource-intensive activity.
In truth, a typical American wedding leaves a huge carbon footprint.
Many couples are uncomfortable with this and are taking steps to be sure that their wedding will be as green as possible.
If you’re thinking about making your own upcoming ceremony greener, it can be a daunting prospect knowing where to start.
But as the old saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single footstep.
Remember, you don’t have to do everything at once to make your wedding green.
Small, incremental steps can lead to big changes in how many resources you will use and just how green your wedding winds up becoming.
Some goals staging a green wedding are relatively simple to achieve.
You can start by making sure that your invitations are printed on recycled paper by a printer using non-toxic ink.
Or, better still; see if you can send out the invitations via e-mail.
That will eliminate using all the paper that went into even recycled wedding announcements.
It’s not traditional, but the whole point of staging a green wedding is to think outside the box.
In order for us to save our planet and continue to have all the resources we need, plus clean air to breathe, pure water to drink and bathe in, we’ve all got to envision a new paradigm where we use less resources, and then use the ones we have more efficiently.
Everyone, even new brides, has got to be committed to creating less waste and consuming less.
That last sentence almost sounds un-American, I know, but it’s true.
We are living in an era with different expectations from previous generations.
Our resource-hungry lifestyles are unsustainable, so we’ve got to make changes in how we work, live, play, and consume.
And starting with a green wedding is a fabulous idea.
It sets the right tone at what will be one of the most important, optimistic events in anyone’s life.
What better gift could you give any young couple than the knowledge that they did the right thing when they got married?
Having a green wedding means that you’re not contributing tons of new waste to landfills, you’re not using disposable cups, plates and plastic eating utensils.
It means finding local sources for the food and drinks served at your reception.
It means encouraging your guests to carpool.
It may even mean scaling back your wedding plans to have a smaller affair than you originally planned.
But whatever you eventually decide, if you search under the category “green weddings” on this website, the series of articles that are contained herein can help you make every aspect of your wedding greener than you ever imagined possible.
