As promised last week, we’re diving into another aspect of the things that make our homes what they are:  the people. Folks say that home is where the heart is, and I know I don’t have to tell you that it’s people that give us the pulse.

Today I’d like to introduce you to Christine.  She has a cute little blog where she strives to keep life simple – and she makes it all look so, well, simple!  I’ve asked Christine to help me kick off this series because as a newly wed (fresh from the altar last month!), she’s pulled off one of the most impressive weddings I’ve ever seen.  She’s kept it simple, green, and so very Christine.

Weddings mark the beginning for creating that pulse in so many of our homes.  Won’t you please join me in welcoming Christine as she shares her do-it-yourself green wedding?

Welcome Christine!  Congratulations on your big day.  You and your new husband, Mr. Savvy, strove to make a lot of wedding traditions a bit greener.  Why?

Mr. Savvy and I both care about the environment.  It factors into our lives every day, so it made sense to us to carry that over into our wedding planning.  There are a lot of things about the wedding industry that are decidedly not green.  For example, the idea that it must be the Most Perfect Day of Your Life, so therefore you must buy whatever you want.  That puts a lot of pressure on people to go big and extravagant, and spend on things they wouldn’t normally buy and would never use again.  We wanted to step away from that mentality and take the pressure off not only us but the guests.

Tell us about your wedding dress and Mr. Savvy’s suit.  How can you make clothing more eco-friendly?

My dress was made out of bamboo jersey with a polyester lining.  One of my cousins made the dress for me.  There are a lot of issues with bamboo clothing and its perceived “green-ness”; even though bamboo grows fast and grows well without pesticides, it uses a lot of chemicals to turn bamboo stalks into cloth, and it’s usually made in China where there are fewer regulations protecting workers – none of which I found out until after the dress was made!  So in a way, my dress was green and it wasn’t.  But I had it made in a simple style with the idea that I’d shorten it and get more use out of it after the wedding. 

We picked up Mr. Savvy’s suit at store nearby.  There’s nothing special about it, except for the fact that he didn’t have a tan suit and wanted one for the future.  We anticipate him wearing the suit often, so we had no problem purchasing a new one that fit into our budget.

Even though our wedding clothes are conventional, we’ll wear them again.  That’s pretty good for a wedding, I’d say.

So how did you approach the bridesmaids’ (and groomsmen’s) clothes, then?

We asked our attendants to wear either a green dress or a tan suit and gave them free range to choose whatever they wanted, as long as it was something they would be comfortable in and would wear again.  Two of the bridesmaids already had green dresses, and the remaining three bridesmaids and the groomswoman went out and purchased summery green dresses. One of the groomsmen already had a tan suit, one bought one from Goodwill, and I think one borrowed one from his father (but I can’t confirm that).  

Did your guests know that you were trying to create a simpler, greener wedding?  And what did you do about gifts?

I’m glad you asked this question.  We didn’t come right out and tell our guests that we were having a green wedding, but most of them got it from several big hints before the wedding day.  For example, our invitations were printed on seed paper and said “plant me!” right on the bottom.  We also didn’t include an RSVP card, but asked guests to call, email, or use our wedding website.  And on the website, we explained that we wanted a casual, summery wedding, and asked guests not to go out of their way to get new clothes and tons of presents.  About half the guests showed up in jeans!  I’m pretty sure my mother was the only guest to go out and buy a dress specifically for the wedding.

For gifts, we used Alternative Gift Registry, and asked for a grand total of seven items, including pies for the reception, people to run the iPod for an hour during the reception, and anything homemade.  The non-crafty crowd responded by picking up presents from their local artisans.  A few of our crunchier friends wrapped their gifts in fabric, and almost everyone else either gave us pies or love (or both!).  We thought we’d done a good job of discouraging gifts, so just getting anything at all was a surprise. 

Grub.  You have to tell us about the grub, Christine.  It’s Martin’s favorite part!

Martin’s got good taste!  (No pun intended, although I know you don’t believe me.)  The family-owned catering business that we chose was known more for their low price than their eco-friendliness.  But we told them to make everything vegetarian except for one entree out of two, and to find as much in-season, locally-grown, and fresh food as possible.  And they did! 

They served us cheese and crackers, fresh fruit, salad, grilled veggies, and the vegetarian option was a grilled portobello mushroom with mozzarella, tomato and basil (delicious, by the way).  The carnivores got grilled chicken.  For dessert, we had multiple small cakes made by a friend — but no pie!  The caterers forgot to cut and serve it, so we ended up taking home about 20 pies.  Half of them are still in the freezer.  That was a little frustrating.

My favorite is the flowers.  Is that something you can make green?

I don’t know if you can ever make flowers truly green, unless you were to get married in the middle of an organically grown garden and carry no bouquet or boutonnierre.  But we did our best. We found a fantastic florist who deals with local and organic flowers, and told her to go wild getting us anything local and in-season and bright.  We also asked her to downsize everything, and then we planned to fill in the decorations with potted plants that our guests could keep (except I forgot them at home.  Drat!).  One of our smarter moves was to pick a venue that was pretty all by itself, so it didn’t need flowers or lanterns or candles to dress it up. 

So it sounds like you’re a strong advocate of the idea that “green” doesn’t mean buying all new, greener things.  (Yeah!)  How would you define a green lifestyle/wedding, then?   

I think I’d define a green wedding as planning your wedding so that it has the least possible impact on the environment that your circumstances allow.  There were plenty of things that were definitely NOT green with our wedding – like the fact that we made all of our guests drive more than an hour to get there.  And that was the compromise!  It was either that, or have two separate wedding receptions; also perfectly valid, but just not for us.  

I agree with what you’re getting at in the question.  One of the strangest conversations we had was with a woman at the jewelery store where we resized my ring.  She found out that our wedding theme was earthy and started quizzing us about what car we drove, what eco designer was making my dress, and what we were going to buy for our guests.  That’s not our style!  I’d argue that buying tons of eco-friendly products is inherently not green (all those resources used!  All that shipping!), but the jewelery store woman thought that was the only way to be an environmentalist.  So I guess that’s where everyone’s particular circumstances come into play.

What was the biggest expense at your wedding?  I mean, we usually associate the idea of going green with a whole lot of, well, green to pay for it.  It doesn’t sound like that was the case for you at all.

The biggest expense was the food, by far – it took up half the budget!  And even then, if we’d had a another thousand dollars to spare, we would have put it toward catering so that we could have had organic food as well as local.  We definitely had to push and pull our budget so that it fit everything we wanted, and we prioritized away a lot of the typical wedding things: the big cake, the DJ, the fancy centerpieces, the satin dress, the professional photographer.  But anyone who lives green on a budget knows about prioritizing.  We picked the things that were most important to us (family, food, and making sure people had fun), and concentrated on making those items awesome.  Everything else sort of fell into place.

Is there something you’d change or wish could have been a better eco choice?

We hurried through the programs at the last minute, and because we were too rushed for time to scout eco-friendly printers in the area, the programs were printed on regular paper with regular ink.  That was a blow.  We have about 50 of them left over, and I’d just feel so much better about the whole thing if they were at least on recycled paper.

The other thing I’d change is to make sure the caterers cut the pie!  Even though they had instructions from us beforehand, they either forgot or chose not to cut the pie.  I’m sure our guests thought we were compulsive pie-hoarders, asking for all those pies and then not serving them.  There’s no way we can eat them all, but I hate to throw them out.

I’d like to add one last question: Do you have any advice for people planning a green party? 

Yes – leave as little as possible to the last minute.  The more time you have, the more research you can do, and the more options you’ll come up with.

 

Isn’t this girl fabulous?  Thank you again, Christine!  Stay tuned for next week as we hop across the pond for an international wedding…

 

 

(Images courtesy of Simple Savvy)