How to Plan an Ethical Wedding || Wedding Tips and Advice
We love love love blogging sessions so you all can see some amazing recent photos and get some wedding planning inspiration. Also because we love our couples so much and want to share with the world how awesome they all are. Today we’re bringing you some wedding tips and advice on how to plan an ethical wedding.
There are so many things to think about when planning a wedding, chances are you already know this! You can find lots of different wedding tips on our blog like these general wedding day tips, getting the guys involved with what they should wear and their responsibilities, a good wedding timeline, and a good way to include kids in your day. (Just to name a few.) Those are all super important to think about depending on what you want your day to look like. Well it is no secret that we are a Proud to be Green and urge you to think about this as well as you plan your special day. It’s really not that tough to plan a Green Wedding (promise!). But don’t let it stress you out. We’ve put together some tried and true things to think about on how to plan an ethical wedding.
Vendor Business Practices
The right (or wrong) vendors can make or break your wedding. Pretty please, do your research. It’s not always just about the cheapest option or a business who produces the look you like. Of course their style is important for a beautifully curated day, but there is more to think about than just that. And with price, well you know – cheap isn’t always good and good isn’t always cheap.
A better way to think about it is do your vendors align with your ethics / beliefs? Do they donate to charities? Are they local / small business? Are they socially and environmentally conscience? Guess what – we are! And once you choose us for your photography and video for you wedding, we would be happy to help point you in the right direction to choose your other wedding vendors.
Make your Wedding Eco-Friendly
This one has a big impact, literally on the world around us. Just a few little changes and tweaks from the “norm” can make a big difference. Imagine if everyone thought about the environment when planning their wedding. Here’s a few things we’ve seen along the way to help keep your wedding green:
- Wedding Waste – How much trash is your wedding generating? Are you using plastic straws (no thank you to that! We actually offer a freebie to our couples who ditch plastic straws/plates/any wasteful product. Get more info here. Will lots of food end up in the trash? It makes my stomach turn when I see all that cocktail food get thrown away. Maybe your caterer can donate it to homeless shelters or fresh food banks, it’s worth asking! What can you resell / reuse / donate – like decorations, signage, table clothes, etc.
- Speaking of donating, consider donating your wedding flowers. We love everything about Forget Me Knot Flowers, we even featured them on a past vendor spotlight before – go check it out. They take your used wedding flowers (or from any event for that matter) redesign them and deliver them to nursing homes and hospitals to bring light into another person’s life who doesn’t normally get nice things like that. Who doesn’t love to get flowers, especially when you’re not expecting them. Otherwise your beautiful flowers that you spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on will end up in the trash without being enjoyed a 2nd time. I’ll dry them and keep them you’ll say, but you likely won’t anyways.
Keep it Local and in Season
We always advocate supporting small / local business, because hey we are one! Luckily with weddings, most vendors are local and small anyways. Things like clothing are easier sometimes to not support local. Your first thought it probably to go somewhere like Men’s Wearhouse or David’s Bridal. But if you opt for somewhere like Indochino you’re going to get a way cooler personalized suit for a similar cost. And the local bridal shops usually have super unique dresses to choose from, as well as sales just like national companies. How cool is is when you frequent a small business and they remember you and greet you by name! That’s because you helped them pay rent or feed their family buy giving them your business. And that’s a great feeling.
With a similar idea, go with locally sourced food that are in season. It’s going to be fresher, you know exactly where it came from and how it got there. You’ll be contributing less pollution in the air because you don’t have to have it transported to you from far away. And you can count on things actually being organic when you pay a premium for the option. Or a lot of the time it’s not even that much more costly! So worth it for your health. Speaking of veggies – please consider a tasty vegetarian option. It’s often an after thought and thrown together. Ok that last one was a favor for me :).
Where are your Products Coming From?
We’ve all heard horror stories from overseas of terrible working conditions, child labor, conflict and war. Unfortunately there are areas of the wedding industry that can contribute to those horrific things. Think of what company your wedding gown came from. It doesn’t have to be a US company but regulations are stricter here that avoids those kinds of things. If you buy your dress from a third world country, you might want to look into the company that made it and make sure a 5 year old didn’t make it and 4am because that’s when their work day starts. Might seem like we’re getting a bit crazy with it but it’s always a possibility. So not worth saving a few bucks. On a lighter note, considering the environment you can opt for an organic material dress.
Another major consideration is where your diamonds are coming from. Please please please buy from a reputable (and local!) jeweler. You do not want to buy a blood diamond. Again so not worth saving a few dollars. Your outward appearance of love should not be at the loss of a life (or many lives). A cool option is to buy a ring second hand with a unique and vintage look. There is history behind it and it can always be reworked if it’s not 100% your style. And that’s as green as it gets!
How did you have a green and eco-friendly wedding? We would love to know! Leave a comment below with any ideas we forgot or if you’ve done anything that we touched on. Together we can all make this world a better place. A lot of little things add up to a lot of big things. I would love for everyone to consider these thing when planning their ethical wedding.
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