kind bride: planning an eco & veg-friendly wedding
Since so many weddings happen in summer, I thought I'd share some details about my own wedding and ideas for planning your own eco friendly veg wedding.
Here are some family pictures I found...this is Christopher's mother, Candy Cope's wedding. She's pictured below with her bridesmaids and her parents. I found these photos and thought they were so beautiful. I think Candy looks so much like Ginnifer Goodwin, don't you? I love the bridesmaids' dresses, and the feeling and style of it all...just lovely. I find these pictures very beautiful and inspiring. If you're planning a vintage wedding, maybe you'll find these inspiring too!
Recently, my family attended a friend's wedding in Camarillo. They made some cool, natural choices, from the location to the seating and decorations. Instead of ordering flowers, they used wildflowers...nice and wild, and cost-effective! The look was beautiful. Everything looked homemade or repurposed from stuff they already had.
There were little tables set up with simple tablecloths and wildflowers for centerpieces. For the ceremony seating, they had haystacks with multicolored shawls spread over them. They used lavender wrapped in paper to sprinkle on the center aisle. You would never know, but behind the parking sign in the photograph above, there was a junkyard...they did a great job of turning it into a beautiful backdrop.
These are all ideas you could use as inspiration for your own wedding! I'd say the most important choice is location. Once you pick that, you can figure out how to work with what you have and what the location has to offer. The key about the location is if you pick somewhere really beautiful and natural and simple, you don't need flowers and all that stuff – just the beauty of what's already there.
What's the most beautiful wedding you ever attended?
More Kind Ideas:
plan your green wedding at recycledbride.com!!
my big, fat, vegan wedding by lindsay wolf
lil kind life: 10 ways to help your kids go green
kind quickie: the urban hotel
20 comments
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I'm getting married on August 2, 2014 and Nathen and I are in the process of planning all the details. It's my wish that the wedding reflect us, and since I'm vegan, obviously there will be some special touches. ;) -
congratulations , it seems there is so fun ,thanks for sharing.my wedding is 3 months later , we did everything step by step. and now , i bought my wedding dress from kissbrides.com , a very stylish and beautiful dress ,what's more the designer promised to make a custom dress for me , so excited . -
My husband and I just got married a month ago and I tried to make it as eco as possible. His family is big into Lutheran tradition's of sauerkraut and sausage; they told me from the beginning that there was no way this would be a veg wedding because they paid for a big chunk of it. But I did the best I could :) My sister in law let me wear her 11 year old wedding dress which I updated by taking the sleeves off, getting a sweetheart neckline, and new bustle. My mother in law happens to be a wedding decorator and had a ton of silk flowers already so we reused all of them. We got scrap wood and painted it to make our own signs to hang at the reception. Oh! And I asked everyone at the bridal shower to forget fancy wrapping and get creative with newspaper, bags or whatever they had. Everyone got really into it! I got an awesome newspaper bow, my bamboo silverware tray wrapped in my eco cloth napkins and some cute tote bags! And the girls did organic, fresh foods for the bachelorette party and they reused some decorations from one of their parties. Oh and my husband and I got vegan meals for the wedding delivered from a great local place called Heather's. She also made the 350 vegan cupcakes and Star Wars grooms cake!! I think life is all about doing as many positive things as you can. Although it wasn't completely vegan, I fought for everything that was eco friendly and I'm happy with the way it all turned out :) -
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Another way to be eco-friendly for your wedding is RENTING! Try www.Happilyeverborrowed.com for renting your bridal accessories!
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i'm still waiting for the right person for ths kind of wedding!
pls have a kind look at my german/english blog
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We got married last December. I've never dreamed of being a bride; I just wanted to be his wife. I didn't wear a wedding gown but an old dress that is very special to me, and there weren't flowers. There was no guest list, we just told a few friends who told a few friends... In the end, we had no idea how many people would come to our wedding. We had the party in ou favorite café, and, as a weding gift and because we had no idea how to order food for an unknown number of people, we asked everyone not to get us a gift but to bring some food. I was the only one vegan at this wedding, but at least half of the dishes we got as gifts were vegan. Our friends made cookies and heart-shaped cakes with no-egg, there were vegan roasts and veggies and salads and so much more. Everybody tried to make something special, and we had the best buffet ever. On top of the pure bliss that was this day... this really touched me. And as for being married... It's like awakening on Christmas morning. Every single day.
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Alicia thanks for this post! And for your few words, made me giggle too, re: the dance floor :-) The way you and your Mom are holding hands so so tightly, I was really struck by that in your wedding photo. Lovely to see xx Bless you all on this lovely Friday!
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Our wedding was in the summer of 2010 and we really tried hard to make it as eco-friendly as economical possible (and within the confines of what my parents were willing to accept). Here are some things we did:
Our invites were printed on recycled wildflower seeded paper (meaning the paper was plantable) with hand-pressed daisies. Very classy and unique looking and very eco-friendly!
We opted for less paper inserts by creating a wedding website where we posted directions, hotel accomodation info, wedding details, registry info, menu, photos, etc.
While our wedding menu was omnivorous (not my choice), it was also entirely vegan friendly with seitan as one of the entrees, handmade local vegan gourmet chocolates, and vegan cupcakes. Our caterer also used a lot of local produce.
In lieu of favors, we made a donation to the humane society
Our ceremony was outdoors in a garden and so we didn't need any decorations. Our floral arrangements were very simple and understated. We got married on site and didn't need a limo.
Our honeymoon was to a local B&B
Some areas I would have liked to be eco-friendly in, but ran into problems were the dress and flowers. I could not find a used dress that I liked in my price range! I ended up buying a new dress on sale for $200 (without needing any alterations). Also, I wanted to buy all my flowers from the local farmer's market--but was worried about how to arrange them and whether the vendor would come through on it. So in the end, I opted for a florist just because it was easier.
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I blogged about my vegan wedding (also featured in the most recent issue of VegNews): http://bit.ly/LLywF8
We thought of every detail possible, and it was the most special day ever!
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I hope my boyfriend proposes to me very soon. And when we do get married, I want it to be as eco and as cost-effective as possible.
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Check out the curent issue of VegNews -- the feature article gives all the details of 8 different weddings, each unique and so beautiful!
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Hey, Melissa!
I mainly eat vegetarian (I'm working my way up to vegan) and I've run into the same issue with my family. When I visit my family, I'm typically the one to do the cooking and I've found that the easiest way to get around their meat mindset is to make pasta. Most pasta is vegan (http://www.vegan-nutritionista.com/is-pasta-vegan.html) and I'm sure you can find some delicious recipes out there. My family is nuts about my pasta- 99% they don't even ask, "Where's the meat?!"
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YAY KIND WEDDINGS!
My husband and I kept ours small (family only) which really cut down on both expense and waste. We have tons of Community, though, so instead of having them at the wedding and having a big reception, we had a big veggie potluck summer party later at a friend's house and made it an open invite. People made their favorite foods and shared the recipes and it was a fabulous communal event, especially for the kids. It was wonderful to have our friends together without the pressure of a wedding and I wouldn't have done it any other way. We'd highly recommend it for anyone planning a kind and wallet-friendly wedding. ;-D
Buuut...
One aspect that many brides seem to ignore when planning a kind wedding is The Dress. If a bride isn't able to wear her mother's gown or find something she likes in a vintage store, she'll often buy a new dress. And since new dresses can be expensive, lots of brides opt for the cheap mass-produced gown, usually produced overseas.
Saving money can be hugely important (it was for us). But many people are unaware of the cruel sweatshop conditions that most cheap wedding dresses are made under. That's totally sad since there are lots of small-scale artisan dressmakers and designers right here in the US who earn a fair wage. Some even work exclusively with sustainable and reclaimed fabrics (Rescue a dress from the landfill!) Designers can do amazing things with this endless source of pre-loved fabric and even re-use the scraps. Everyone wins, including the Earth.
Alicia, what do you think about writing a blogpost on kind wedding dress designers? (yeah, I'm one of them, which is why I care so much about the subject) Spread the Word to your readers that there's a kind alternative to cheap sweatshop-made gowns!
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We are getting married on my other-mother's property a couple hours north of Portland, Maine. She runs a beautiful arts intergrated retreat center on 100 acres of land. There are mountain views, ponds, and streams. We are doing everything outside (and praying that it wont rain). It will be small, simple, and DIY. But our biggest problem is coming up with a menu that will cater to the palates of the meat eaters in the family. My fiance and I are both vegan, and even though we are only inviting our parents and siblings, we are dealing with some really picky, anti-vegan eaters. I cannot wait to see other people's replies. I am interested in what they served at their veg-friendly weddings!
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