10 sustainable ideas for an eco-friendly wedding
Your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life but unfortunately, big celebrations don’t always benefit the health of our planet. As you can imagine, something as big as a wedding can result in a ridiculous amount of wasted food, packaging, flowers, you name it.
But don’t let this stress you out, cause I gotchuuuu!
As a planet conscious wedding photographer, I am always thinking of different ways that I can ensure my business is as carbon neutral as possible. I also love to offer ideas and advice to my clients, so that both you and the planet are looking and feeling good on the big day.
So, without further ado, let’s chat eco-friendly tips and tricks for your wedding planning.
Recycled jewellery is a must.
I know what you might be thinking… What the HECK is recycled jewellery?! Do I have to go looking in bins for rings that someone else has thrown away?!?!?!?!?!
Nope, it’s actually a lot easier than that!
Recycled jewellery simply means sourcing jewellers who use recycled materials in their creations. For example, Lucy Jade Sylvester sources her gold and silver metal from companies who refine preloved metals and repurposes it into the most beautiful rings, necklaces and earrings that are inspired by Mother Nature. Not only is her jewellery absolutely beautiful, but her business uses only Fairtrade gold and every single item is lovingly hand-made in the United Kingdom. That means less of a carbon footprint in terms of postage too!
Your jeweller is one of the most important vendors for your wedding day, so why not choose someone who already goes out of their way to be a sustainable business? That way you know you’re not only supporting a business who cares, but you are also opting for quality and it’s an easy way to be that bit more eco-friendly on your wedding day.
Send eco-friendly invitations.
When it comes to sending wedding invites, it is often too easy to opt for the cheapest option due to the fact you need to send the invites out to 10s or 100s of guests. But have you ever stopped to think about how many invites are just thrown in the bin? Or how the printer ink that is used could often actually be more planet destructive than cutting down the trees to make the paper?
In my opinion, spending a little bit more money to send invites that are more eco-friendly is money well spent on your wedding. There are so many stationary designers out there who can help you create invites that both look good and do good without breaking the bank or the planet.
7 simple ways of making your invites more sustainable:
using recycled materials
using plant based inks
opting for biodegradable materials
asking your guests to RSVP online instead of via post
printing invites onto seed paper (paper that you can plant that grows into flowers)
choosing vendors who plant trees for every order
asking your guests to recycle or compost their invites where possible
Choose the right venue.
I know that choosing the perfect wedding venue is already a challenge in itself, but trust me when I say it is worth looking for a venue that is striving to be as kind to our planet as possible. Not only will this conscious choice of venue benefit the environment, but I can guarantee that you will find that a lot of the most gorgeous venues out there care about nature too, meaning you won’t be skimping on style!
When speaking to a venue that claims to be eco-friendly, I always think it is important to ask questions and get a better understanding of what they are personally doing to make an impact. Here are some questions to consider:
How are they offsetting their carbon?
How are they reducing their plastic waste?
How do they print their menus?
Where do they source their produce from?
How do they power the venue?
What do they do with any food waste?
Have they used sustainable materials to build the venue or maintain it?
Do they work with any wildlife trusts or conservation organisations?
What are they doing to make their grounds more biodiverse?
Do they plant trees or wildflower?
Asking questions and doing your research will not only give you a better idea of how eco-friendly and planet conscious your potential wedding venue is, but it will also help you to think about where your money is going and what matters most to you. When we invest into earth friendly businesses, we invest in the future of our planet.
Get married outdoors.
If a wedding in a venue isn’t floating your boat, why not elope or get married outdoors instead?! This is the perfect alternative for an eco-friendly wedding that isn’t going to break the bank. Plus your choice is literally unlimited - you can get married wherever and whenever you want to (although there are a few regulations in some places, like Banff National Park, for example).
When it comes to eloping or opting for an outdoor wedding, there are a few ways that you can ensure that your special day is even more sustainable.
Think local - elope somewhere close to home, find a local outdoor wedding venue, work with local vendors; reduce your carbon footprint as much as possible by consciously choosing to stay local to your area. Not only is staying local better for the planet, but it will also be a lot less stressful to organise on your behalf!
Minimise the impact of your travel - if you do decide you want to get married abroad, how can you get there without flying? Can you drive or take a train instead? How about offsetting your carbon footprint by planting trees or choosing more sustainable airlines?
Work with eco-friendly vendors - every vendor you pick can have a huge impact on our planet. Opt for wedding suppliers who are planet friendly and you simply can’t go wrong!
Leave No Trace - this is probably the most important, yet often forgotten about, element of your wedding day. If you are getting married outdoors, then please leave no trace of your wedding day behind. You know the phrase, “leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photographs”? Well OWN THAT! There is nothing worse than leaving litter, treading on local fauna or being disrespectful to wildlife. Leave No Trace principals are super important to me as a photographer, so I will never ask you to do anything that puts our land at risk. This is another reason why it is so important to work with the right vendors for your wedding day!
Plant some trees.
This is probably one of the EASIEST ways that you can make your wedding day more eco-friendly. Yet, there are so many couples (and suppliers) who don’t even think about doing this!!
I mean, of course if you want to physically plant your own trees, I am 100% supportive of that and even encourage it (it’s a great activity to do as a couple too). But it’s actually easier than that - when it comes to planting trees, you don’t even need to get your hands dirty.
There are hundreds of trusted companies out there who will do the dirty work for you.
All you have to do is sign up and click a button.
I personally plant 25 trees for every couple who books me for their wedding or elopement. This is a very simply process and I plant these trees with a company that I adore called Ecologi. I have been working with Ecologi for years now and they are simply the best. Not only do they plant trees, but they also work on projects to help the planet, biodiversity and local communities within different countries all over the world.
If you would like to take it one step further and plant your very own trees as part of your wedding celebration through Ecologi, click on the referral link below to get started with 30 free trees planted from me.
A little gift from me, to you.
Think of the flowers.
Flowers are an interesting topic when it comes to sustainability, because cutting flowers before they have even come into bloom isn’t exactly the most eco-friendly thing to do. Not only are you messing with the eco-system by encouraging the farming of flowers over leaving the land to be wild and inhabited by animals, but cut flowers also don’t last and will end up being thrown in the bin.
This is difficult for me, because I absolutely adore flowers! They are often my favourite part of the wedding day and my work revolves around wildflower and the magic of these plants. However, I can’t skip flowers from this blog post, because it’s a very important topic to cover.
So how can you ensure that you are being more conscious with your flower choice for your wedding?
Well, it’s simple really. Be responsible.
Find local suppliers
Choose seasonal blooms (ie only opt for flowers that naturally come into season around the same time that you are getting married)
Try using planted flowers or any kind of plant instead of cut flowers
Keep it foam and plastic free
Use recycled ribbon
Keep your bouquet and flower usage small
Or even opt for dried flowers instead! There are so many beautiful florists who use dried flowers instead of freshly cut flowers. Not only do dried flowers look absolutely gorgeous, but they also technically last forever; meaning that your bouquet can be cherished for years and years to come. My personal favourite dried flower supplier is Everlasting Bunch - her work is absolutely gorgeous.
Choose plant-based meals.
When it comes to food, there is literally no better way to be eco-friendly, then to go plant-based. Not only do vegan and vegetarian dishes require less energy and produce less waste, they are also better for your mind and for your body.
Nowadays, there are so many amazing plant-based wedding caterers available, that it isn’t even difficult to choose a vegan or vegetarian menu over your traditional meat counterparts. My best piece of advice is to simply do your research and sample the food that they have available. You’d be surprised by how tasty plant-based meals can be (especially the desserts - oh my)!
Now I know that removing meat or fish isn’t going to go down well with all your guests; there will always be someone who likes to complain when they are missing out on their beloved steak and chips. However, your wedding day is exactly that - it’s yours. If someone doesn’t want to show up, because they’re not happy with your menu, then so be it. The people who actually care about celebrating the love shared between you and your partner, are the people who don’t care about what food you’re going to serve them. They’re there for you, so you do you!
As long as you are happy, the animals are happy and the planet is happy, then who cares about the rest?
Rent or re-use the decor.
When it comes to decorations, weddings can be one of the most wasteful events of your life. From neon signs to candles, there are endless ways that you could potentially add to the destruction of the planet instead of aiding the survival of it. I mean, how many couples have you spoken to who have random wedding decorations lying around that they just don’t know what to do with other than throw them away?
Well instead of buying brand new decorations for your wedding, why not rent or repurpose some? There are thousands of suppliers out there who have decorations available to hire for the day; table centrepieces, chair covers, flower walls, canopy trees, you name it. You could literally hire every single item to decorate your wedding and then return it so it can be used again and again and again and again. How cool is that?!
And if you would prefer to get crafty, why not repurpose some decorations out of furniture or items that you already have laying around at home? There is an endless scroll of inspiration on Pinterest when it comes to DIY wedding decor and you might just make something that you love that much that you want to display it in your house for the next 20 years. I’d take that over a cheap, throw away, fake flower arrangement any day.
Think about your outfits.
With hundreds of thousands of weddings being celebrated every year in the UK alone, it’s quite a surprise that the waste within the wedding fashion industry is highly overlooked. But think about it - most wedding dresses are only worn once. Most bridesmaid dresses are only worn once. In fact, most outfits that guests wear to a wedding are only worn the once.
I know what you’re thinking - you’re going to keep your wedding dress right? It’s got sentimental value, so surely keeping it is better than throwing it away?
Well, although you’re not being wasteful by throwing it away, there is actually a huge amount of waste produced by the fact that thousands upon thousands of wedding dresses need to be made for their single use purpose of being worn on a wedding day! That’s crazy right?!
So what can you actually do to make your wedding day more sustainable in terms of outfits?
Well, to be honest, you can probably guess what I’m going to say.
Rent, choose second hand or search the vintage shops.
Choosing to purchase or rent a dress that is pre-loved not only cuts down waste in terms of production, but it also ensures that a previously loved gown gets a second or third life. You could even go as far as to sell the dress on again or give it away to charity!
And it doesn’t stop at wedding dresses either. It’s just as easy to shop sustainably for bridal gowns or suits for the groomsmen. You could even challenge your guests to only shop second hand! Make a game out of it and see how much fun people have. It is very easy to reduce waste in the wedding fashion industry - the first step comes with making conscious decisions.
Use biodegradable confetti.
Last, but definitely not least; think about your confetti.
If you’re choosing to have confetti thrown on your wedding day, then the easiest way of switching to something eco-friendly is to make sure that you are using something that is either 100% biodegradable or, better still, completely natural. For example, if you and your guests collect petals from flowers that have been bought into your own homes in the months or years running up to your wedding day, imagine how much dried petal confetti you could collect! This is actually super easy to do and it not only helps to save the planet by giving your flowers a second life, but it’s actually a great way to save some money too.
When it comes to biodegradable confetti, there are hundreds of confetti companies out there who produce biodegradable products. Just make sure that you thoroughly do your research; there are a lot of companies out there who are green-washing and claiming that their confetti is 100% biodegradable when, in fact, it could contain metals, leathers or even micro-plastics. Your best bet when it comes to biodegradable confetti is to work with dried flower petals or businesses that specialise in biodegradable paper confetti.
The choice is endless, but I highly recommend Proper Confetti - they stock paper and petal confetti that falls at a slower speed, which is perfect for those confetti throw photos that everyone loves to receive from their big day! If a sustainable photographer recommends a confetti company, they’ve gotta be good.
Final thoughts on an eco-friendly wedding…
It really isn’t as difficult as you might have first thought! There are endless ways that you can switch to something more sustainable; from biodegradable wedding invites to plant-based meals.
The only problem? You might find it hard to choose between two perfectly sustainable wedding vendors for your big day.
Happy wedding planning!!
If you are searching for a wedding photographer who cares about Mother Nature as much as you do, then look no further.
I am proud to say that my entire business is carbon neutral, plus I plant 25 trees for every couple who book with me. What more could you want from your wedding photographer?
If you would like to chat with me about my wedding packages or what I personally do to help our planet, I would love to hear from you. Simply click on the button below and enquire…
