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Real Greener Ever After Wedding: Farm Fresh Weddingfest
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The couple: Adina Allen and Jeff Kasowitz
The date: July 3rd, 2009
The locale: An eco-spiritual retreat center in Connecticut’s Berkshire Mountains.
Some would call it kismet.
Adina Allen had just moved to San Francisco two weeks earlier to begin work with a rabbi. And Jeff Kasowitz was hit with the urge to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish high holiday, in a more spiritual way with a new congregation.
When Jeff came through the doors, Adina was leading the service in song, singing Adamah — which means “Earth” in Hebrew. He says, “I walked in and felt her presence. And knew I was going to be with her.”
The Engagement Ring: Symbolizing New Growth
That was in September of 2006. Two years later, Jeff and Adina packed up a U-haul and began a two month cross country road trip to Boston, where Adina would start rabbinical school and Jeff would start a new job at the non-profit City Year. While visiting Adina’s parents' home in Ojai, California along the way, the two went on a walk overlooking an orange grove when Jeff proposed with a ring that he had spent the last couple months designing with local artist, Jes Maharry. Afterwards, they planted a pomegranite tree together “ to honor our engagement and symbolize the growth of our relationship,” says Jeff.
Jeff knew he wanted to give Adina a non-traditional ring and and had been looking through Robert Redford’s Sundance Catalog when he first saw Maharry’s work. When he learned that Maharry lived on a farm in the same town as Adina's parents, he said it was obvious he had to work with her. The unique rose gold ring is designed with etchings of the natural things that Adina loves — a tree, sun, ocean and star to represent the heavens. It also contains seven different colored sapphires —sourced from socially responsible companies — that “symbolize the color that Adina brings to everything.”
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Jeff Kasowitz and Adina Allen after tieing the knot.
Photo by Bonnie Elgamil.
Why A Greener Ever After?
Known for their great passion for organic farming and sustainability, Adina says, “It was really important for us that we weren’t just putting on some big event. It was a celebration of love and coming together, but also a community gathering event that brought everyone into this part of our world and life. We incorporated tons of green aspects. Every decision was thoroughly thought about, and we wanted it be as much ‘us’ as possible.”
“A lot of green stuff can be self-righteous and preachy,” adds Jeff. “We tried to infuse green aspects and show by example without talking about it. We were able to use this time to showcase our beliefs to our families and friends without giving a workshop or lecture. We could plan an event with these things incorporated and show how full and fun and meaningful these things can be without being so wasteful — that this is a beautiful way to celebrate when each part has meaning and is sustainable.”
The Setting: A Natural Choice
Adina and Jeff’s wedding destination was a natural choice for them — at a six-acre farm and retreat center in Connecticut’s lush Berkshire mountains where Adina spent a three month Jewish environmental fellowship in 2005. During her time at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Adina worked on the farm and was exposed to sustainable living, Jewish learning, and community building through the Adamah Fellowship. Since meeting Jeff, they have both been back numerous times for retreats and holidays.
Favors included reusable farmers market totebag, strawberry jam
and salve made with ingredients from the farm, and an eye pillow
made from leftover huppah fabric, filled with organic lavender.
Photo by Ben Wilkinson.
“It’s a very special place to us,” says Jeff. “We wanted to have our wedding at a place where we could come back to, that will be there for years to come, and always have those memories alive for us. And we wanted to introduce all our friends and families who may get turned onto it and get involved in some way.”
Adina adds that she also wanted guests to experience “the physical beauty of the place. That you can hike and swim, makes it feel like a vacation for some people. We’re friends with the chef and people who grow the food and wanted to show our families and friends that we had this community that showcased how awesome it is to have your friends helping out and growing our food.”
Nearly three-fourths of the 240 guests spent the wedding weekend in cozy cabins tucked between groves of trees at the retreat, with another two dozen camping in tents.
Reusable and Organic DIY Favors
When the guests arrived, they were greeted with a reusable green canvas tote that the couple hopes will be used for many trips to the farmers market. Inside was a jar of strawberry jam and a jar of salve hand-made by friends from ingredients fresh off the farm. Each bag also held an eye pillow made from leftover fabric from the ceremonial huppah, filled with organic lavender from the Ojai farmers market.
Under the huppah: Made by Adina's mother, Pat, out of re-purposed and
recycled fabric donated by guests. Photo by Elisabeth Ring.
Outdoor Ceremony & Huppah
The ceremony was held outdoors, utilizing the beauty of the natural surroundings, with a lake as a backdrop.
The huppah — a traditional canopy that is held over the bride and groom to symbolize a home — was a labor of love by Adina’s mom, Pat. Months before the wedding, she invited guests to send her pieces of recycled and re-purposed fabric to be incorporated into the making of the huppah. The design was based on a tree of life motif adapted from a series of drawings Adina made the previous fall, and was made “to honor the values that guide Adina and Jeff in their life together.”
Adina's vintage inspired dress was handmade by a friend.
Photo by Bonnie Elgamil.
Vintage Inspired
Adina’s vintage-inspired wedding dress was hand-made by her friend Kathryn Brooks. Adina says, “I couldn’t handle going to huge bridal stores and be in that frenzy and buy from a big box store. Having my wedding dress made by someone I knew really meant something to me.” Adina plans to dye her wedding dress in the future and wear it for other occasions.
Jeff also made a conscientious decision with his wedding wear and donned a tan summer suit made of certified organic hemp by Rawganique.
The Rings: Precious Metal
Adina and Jeff felt strongly about not supporting gold mining, so they took Jeff’s mom’s engagement ring band and a few gold beads from a necklace that belonged to Adina’s grandmother, melted down the gold together, and used the resulting precious metal to cast their wedding rings.
Reinventing an Old Tradition
Adina and Jeff say they spent a lot of thought on “re-interpreting jewish rituals in a green way” for their wedding celebrations. The ritual of the breaking of the glass was one of those. Jeff says, “I was thinking about it one day about how once the glass is broken what do you do with a bunch of shattered glass? It’s great to signify a momentous occasion, but I wanted to take it an extra step.”
Reinterpreting tradition: "breaking the shells"
used as fertilizer for tree planting ceremony.
Photo by Pat Allen.
Therefore, instead of glass, the couple decided to break sea shells and use those shattered pieces in a more sustainable way — as fertilizer for a peach tree they planted at the end of the weekend.
“By breaking the shells, we symbolized the brokenness in the world and incorporated a tree planting ceremony where from the brokenness literally comes growth. The shells can act as food and fertilizer where it can help this tree grow,” says Jeff. “And the fact that we now have a tree commemorating our wedding at a place that has so much meaning to us is incredible.”
The peach tree was planted in an edible forest teaching garden that Adina and Jeff helped to design during a week-long permaculture workshop two years prior at Isabella Freedman.
Farm fresh produce grown right on the site, used for all vegetarian meals and
displayed at Sunday farmers market as guests left the retreat. Photo by Adina.
Locally Grown
Adina and Jeff say the two green aspects they are most proud about incorporating into their wedding are the breaking of the shells and tree planting, as well as having a full weekend that was vegetarian.
“Not only was it all vegetarian, it was mostly local — so local that it was from the actual farm we were staying on,” says Adina. “It was a cool way to have people experience what it is to eat vegetarian who think they may need to have meat at every meal. Those specific people who were worried said how great the food was and couldn’t believe you could make veggie food taste like that.”
Sunday Farmers Market
At the end of the weekend as guest left to drive home, the farmers from the retreat set up a market along the roadside with the fresh fruits and produce that they picked that very morning, as well as pickled items and goat cheese from Adva, the local goat dairy started by their friend Aitan Mizrahi.
Other Green Tidbits
Other eco-friendly ideas that they were able to infuse in their wedding planning were omitting RSVP cards entirely and relying an online website, and offering yarmulkes made out of recycled cardboard by Eco-Suede. They also used perennial potted plants for their centerpieces which came from the Sweethaven Farm greenhouse, and provided local beer from the Berkshire Brewing Company.
During the dancing portion of the wedding weekend, the couple projected the Discovery Channel’s mini-series Planet Earth on a screen above the dance floor to “promote natural awareness of other living species.”
Advice for Other Eco-conscious Couples
- Definitely keep it fun and light. The decisions you make shouldn’t limit you.
- Incorporate your friends because they want to be involved and it’s meaningful for them, too.
- Don’t be afraid of what other people are going to say or expect of a wedding. We helped shift that idea and ultimately when people get there they’re totally grateful for that experience.
- Don’t settle. You may have tough conversations with your families, but try to get them onboard and build consensus on building meaningful celebrations.
- Go with what you are passionate about because you love it and people will love it, too.
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