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Photo by Gabriela Ruellan
With wedding season in full bloom, here's a few ideas on how you can help make less of an impact while celebrating the big day.
- Avoid snail mail. RSVP online or via phone if you can. This will save another piece of mail having to go through the system of being trucked and flown across the country and releasing carbon emissions.
- Try not to buy a gift off-registry. You want to make sure the wedding couple will truly enjoy and use the gift you give them, so pick from what you know they already want.
- Opt out of the extra gift wrapping if you’re having the wedding gift shipped. Not only will it save you an extra $5, the wedding couple will appreciate not having to deal with tossing out yet another box and spool of ribbon. Just think, most items already come in their own store packaging. If you get it gift wrapped, they’ll stick that into a gift box, and then stick the gift box into yet another box for shipping. Why ship one item in three boxes?
- Give Green. Donate to a charity that’s meaningful to the couple, in their name. Or give a micro-loan through Kiva. You can make a loan in their name to the country they’ll be honeymooning in, or give them the power to change lives themselves with a Kiva gift certificate. Not only will the couple get the funds back to spend on something they like later — or use it to re-lend to someone else in need — but you’ll also be giving an impoverished entrepreneur a chance to succeed.
- Travel light. Carpool with other guests to the wedding site. (This is also great for arranging a designated driver.) If traveling, share a rental car, and don’t forget to choose a hybrid if you can.
- Stay in a green hotel. You can find listings for sustainable hotels at the Green Hotels Association and Environmentally Friendly Hotels sites.
- Hold onto your wine glass or drinking glass throughout the event and reuse it. If you’re going to have another round of the same drink, ask the bartender to just give you a refill instead of a brand new glass that they’ll have to wash. Also consider using the same glass for the champagne toast.
- Eat green. Pick the vegetarian option for your entree. According to the United Nations report, Livestock's Long Shadow, meat is the number one cause of global warming. Raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined — that includes all cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes in the world.
- Purchase carbon offsets for your transportation and lodging, and for your footprint at the wedding event itself. San Francisco based TerraPass and CarbonFund.org both have wedding specific carbon footprint calculators that you can use for you and whoever is in tow.
- _____________. Tip number ten is up to you. Share ways that you’ve been a green wedding guest by emailing patti@greenereverafter.com. The top ideas will be compiled and posted in a future Green Weddings article.
Please feel free to contact Patti with questions or to share your Greener Ever After™ wedding tips and stories. Email: patti@greenereverafter.com Twitter: SFGreenWeddings.
Comments
Give them a coat hanger. They can use it on themselves, before the have to use it on themselves.
Don't go at all. Just stay in your cave eating bugs and seeds.
Patti, so disappointed with your consumerist, bourgeois suggestions. Surely we can all do better as our planet is doomed, water running out within the next few years and fossil fuels/life scheduled to be extinct within decades?
1. Don't attend paper-dependent weddings
2. Don't buy a gift at all, especially if it might be consumed as you suggest - by the couple themselves (only 2 ppl)
3. Recycle wrapping from the last gift you got. Occasion or colour doesn't matter - everyone throws this stuff away. Except you.
4. Do not support honeymooning abroad or anywhere outside their hometown, unless they ride, walk or canoe to the location. Air travel = 1/3 of cattle emissions, you know.
5. Only attend weddings in the local area. Or else go to www.greenvideoconferencing.com
6. Camp in a tent.
7. Drink straight from can or bottle - cut out the "glass" (capitalist middleman)
8. Eat vego, yes, but avoid makeup or deodorant - unnecessary pollutants
(cont'd)
(cont'd from above)
9. Picket all wedding guests who have NOT purchased carbon offsets. How can anyone be allowed to enjoy themselves after murdering part of the planet by attending the event?
10.Dress with at least one dead polar bear or penguin visible - no sense in wasting the opportunity to "raise awareness" right? Who cares if its factually incorrect?
I'm sure the other contributors can do better.
10. Tell your friends not to have a wedding at all - very carbon intensive you know!
(Honestly, you self righteous wankers try to suck the life out everything!)
A free hour with a divorce lawyer, since half of marriages end up that way.
And urge the man to split after the first child, since that's the origin of our last two Democrat Presidents.
Why do I get the feeling that Patti doesn't get invited to many weddings?
Wow—sounds like June Gloom got the best of this miserable crowd. I think you all suck. These are tips, not mandates—you idiots.
I actually like these tips. Thanks for thinking differently about ways to be less wasteful and more respectful. Nay sayers can _____ a _____. Fill in those blanks, Rik.
10. A voucher for a vasectomy. If they go forth and multiply the planet could be doomed.
11. Kool Aid for all wedding guests. Fewer humans on the planet will be beneficial for gaia.
10. Put your money where your mouth is, and save the planet. Slit your useless latte liberal wrists.
#10 Avoid conversations with right wing nut jobs.
Hey Patti...what's wrong with these ____ O _____"s ? Just goes to show...stupidity is alive and well. Well, while they have their head in the sand...here's a 10th suggestion: make sure your reception site (be it a hotel, a backyard or the legion hall), has recycling available for those of us who do care about the earth. Love your articles!!!!!
Spike the punch with hemlock or cyanide. Voluntary human extinction doesn't have to be voluntary!
These are great tips and make common sense, too. It's sad that some people don't have anything better to do than spread their poison through bad blog comments. Get a life!
thanks for the great article patti - gave me a good laugh and inspired me to increase my 'carbon footprint' at weddings!
I'll be sure to request extra wrapping on gifts and take the scenic route travelling on the day! Great tips
#8a - after eating the vegetarian option for your entree, feel free to tuck into the DEAD ANIMAL for the mains.
After all meat IS the number one cause of global warming so every one you kill and eat is one less farting methane.
#10. A plea from the heart that our Green couple keep their genes out of the pool....due to the waste of space.
Patti, I think it's apalling that you would encourage such unethical environmetal behaviour. The entire notion of a 'big wedding' used far too much of the earth's precious resources on a frivolous event. If you really want to advocate for climate justice, you should be encouraging people to have simple outdoor ceremonies without guests, lighting, transport or wasteful reception functions.
Make sure there is enough fuitcake for everyone!
Eat mung beans and be a boring little tosser - then you'll fit right in!
Thanks for the invitation, but regretfully I can't attend as I need to have a wisdom tooth removed and I might as well have it done on your wedding day. Anything would be less painful than sharing the same room as a pack of preachy, humourless, eco-religious nutjobs.
Sterilize the couple so they can't breed, after all having babies is evil as they grow up to pollute the planet :)
Slit your wrists, you enviro nutter! Save the whales!
Did you mean fruitcake you douche bag? They're all scum, Patti. Your tips are cool here.
Heaven forbid, I've never seen this many emo teenagers on one comment page. Wrist slitting is un-American, folks.
True Benny....but for poseur masturbating Greenies, we'll make a cultural exception.
Kudos to Patti for getting such a great reaction. The point is that a good section of the public does not believe that the earth is dying at all, and it shows wide-eyed environmentalism for what it is: gullibility, conformism and a desire to control others.
Deflower the bride unless she uses plastic.
some strange comments here..
these are all great suggestions. thanks for the article!
Thanks for these great suggestions, Patti ! I am enjoying your articles...I'm surprised that some of these "readers" have nothing better to do than spew their 4th grade hatred, but, then, some of the schools are getting out this week freeing up their time...
Patti's been discovered.
Google Tim Blair...Sterilise the Bride.
Great article Patti - thanks. Looks like you caught the attention of a small contingent of folks whose parents were really mean to them when they were children. :) Glad to see you are tuning out these dorks....keep on keeping on....can't wait to read the next one.
#10-Rent a wedding gown/tux. (My friend rented a fabulous Prada number although no one knew that except for a select few friends.) Or, have a dress designed that can be used for other formal events. (Another fabulous couple had this in mind when designing their dress and suit.)
These are really good ideas, Patti, and I appreciate all the links as well. Thanks for the service you have done here!
Kiva is great! I didn't know they can do micro-loan through other people's name! That's awesome, thanks for the tip Patti!
Yay!You listed www.EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com always a must for me as an eco-conscious traveler! Great tips and links. Thank you!
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