Green Wedding Shower Check List

A green wedding can be much more than simply the ceremony and reception.  As we’ve worked through our planning our family and friends have been eager to try their hand at infusing sustainability into showers and parties.  (The Matron-of-honor shared her expereince last month here on Go Green In Style.)

We’ve captured our checklist here to help you as you organize your thinking.  Let us know what other questions or suggestions you have!

 

Category	Checklist	Resources
Invitations	•Paperless  invitations- online invitation    •If paper, recycled content paper and soy ink   •Non-traditional: Seed paper, handmade, hemp	•Evite.com or Pingg.com    •Greenprinter.com   •Botanicalpaperworks.com
Food	•Green menu- Some or all of the menu is composed of local, organic, in season ingredients    •Choose a caterer who specializes in sustainable catering   •Minimize meat and dairy	•WorldCommunityCookbook.org    •GA Options: GeorgiaOrganics.org
Beverages	•Non-alcoholic:  organic teas, soft drinks •Wine: Choose organic, biodynamic, or local wine  •Beer: Choose organic or local beer   •Liquor: Several organic vodkas are on the market	•Choice Teas, Knudsen    •Bonterra, Frey   •Wolavers, Stone Mill   •360 Vodka, Square One
Supplies	•Eliminate paper and plastic products. Use china, silverware, linens    •If using disposables, go for compostable products	•Worldcentric.com
Themes	•Organic cooking demonstration    •Botanical garden  or museum	•GA: Cooks Warehouse
Décor	•Flowers: Choose in season and domestically grown, consider plants or flowers that can be planted    •Minimize decorations that will be disposed	•Waldenour.com
Favors	•Avoid excess packaging and highly packaged goods    •Carbon offsets or donations to the brides favorite charity	•Terrapass.com
Location	•Choose a restaurant has gone green- sustainable menu, green building, and other green practices    •Choose a museum or historic venue   •Locate near alternative transit options	•GA Options: GeorgiaOrganics.org
Travel	•Encourage guests to carpool    •Offer guests to option to buy carbon offsets	•Evite offers option to list    •Terrapass.com
Waste disposal	•Recycle    •Compost food and paper waste	•Earth911.com    •Composting101.com

From Poofy Petroleum to Gorgeous Green

Gone are the days when your only options for bridal gowns have rhinestones, taffeta, and lace.  Now you don’t have to choose between couture and consciousness.  Fabrics like rayon and polyester are created by using petroleum and the labor practices leave much to be desired.  These days, silk, bamboo, and organic cotton are widely available in many styles of gown and leave a much smaller mark on our planet.  Designers, both local and national, have jumped into the world of “green” gowns and their pieces are fairly easy to find.  In fact, Atlanta’s own Linda Loudermilk established eco couture through her self titled line and continues to set the standard for elegant couture that meets the highest environmental standards.

 

How exactly did I find a gown that makes me look hot without making our globe warm?

 

Start by searching the internet for local stores and or online retailers that carry environmentally friendly lines.  Designers Morgan Bosilcov of Natural Bridals and Deborah Lindquist set the standard for eco chic yet affordable.  If you are looking for an off the rack solution, stick to dresses made of eco-fabrics.  Fabrics to look out for include reclaimed and vintage fabrics, end run fabrics, organic cotton, bamboo, silk, and silk/hemp blends.  Ann Taylor and J. Crew offer a range of silk dresses.

Lusting for Local Food

Why Going Local Is One of the Best Ways to Go Green

Sustainable weddings are a wonderful event to plan because every detail can be intentional – from the recycled paper or paper-less invites to the dress made of eco-friendly materials or, even better, found on consignment. Your wedding is the perfect opportunity to be authentic and share your environmental passion with guests. One commonly overlooked area to make a huge impact and drastically cut your carbon footprint on your big day is to serve local and seasonal food. And in Georgia, it’s easier, and tastier, than ever.  

Local food tastes better, doesn’t need a passport to arrive at your wedding and supports your local community and on your wedding day – good karma is great thing! In the U.S., food travels an average of 1,500 miles from farm to fork and arrives on your plate with added chemicals to make the long journey, reduced nutritional value and lackluster flavor. Treat your guests to local goodies by using these great resources and tips:

•          In Georgia, there are several caterers that specifically source local and sustainable food. Check them out in Georgia Organics’ Local Food Guide. Already have a caterer lined up?  Ask them what they can source from local farmers!
•          Plan a seasonal menu. Working with your caterer is the easiest way to do this but you can have some fun with your fiancé and find out what’s in season for your big day. Eating seasonal food guarantees the freshest taste and is affordable.
•          Source local wine and beer. Georgia has some great local breweries and wineries coming online every day. Treat guests to something different form the usual Monday night football brew and check out options like Atlanta Brewing Company, Sweetwater, Terrapin, Persimmon Creek Wines and others. All listed in the Local Food Guide linked above.
•          Don’t forget the meat! Eating local isn’t just about veggies. Georgia has some of the BEST local meats. Enjoy grass-fed and humanely treated items on your menu such as beef from White Oak Pastures and pork from Riverview Farms.
•          Consider using local flowers. Most farms grow beautiful wildflowers to facilitate pollination of crops. Many sell these flowers at local markets or directly. While most brides choose roses or lilies, think outside-the-box and feature big, beautiful bouquets of local flowers instead. To find a list of farms who sell flowers, check out Georgia Organics online Organic Directory - look through the farms for listing that include flowers. Who knows what else you may find?!

Save food miles, serve tastier food, support the local economy AND do a great thing for the environment on your wedding day – support local food!

Hungry for More? Check Out These Tantalizing E-Bites

Online Local Food Guide 

Interactive Organic Directory 

Whole Foods Farm to Market Blog – The Faces of Those Who Grow Our Food

Step by Step Guide to Greening a Traditional Registry

 

Looking to give your registry a green hue?  Great decision!  Here are the steps we developed from our experiance greening our registry.

1.       Take stock of what you need. Books like The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day or stores like Williams Sonoma offer a great checklist of a typical registry.  We were able to go through the list and decide what we did and didn’t need.

2.       Evaluate your options.  We are dedicated to not only going for the green option but also to supporting small, local businesses. We investigated our local retail options and online resources.  We included traditional retail outlets in our survey and were pleasantly surprised to find many are now offering green product lines.

3.       Set and order your priorities:  Style, price, durability, usability, level of green, and sourcing were all important to us but we were not aligned on the order of priority.  Mandy set green above all others while Sean brought the more practical issues like durability and usability. For example, Mandy fell in love with a recycled glass artisan dish set for their everyday wear. It didn’t make the registry because it was not microwaveable.  We found another recycled glass set through Vivaterra that was.

4.       Test your products before committing to them:   Many of the green products are only available online.  It was important to us to ensure that the products lived up to their marketing.  For example, we bought samples of several styles of bath towels before committing to one. We wanted to see what held its color and we enjoyed the most. Similarly, we bought a couple samples of our everyday wear to test it out.

5.       Register at multiple places:  We were not able to find a way to aggregate our registry in one place. 

6.       Explain to your guests what you’re doing and why you are doing it:  The registry is a wonderful way for your guests to take part in your adventure.  You can expose them to fun, new resources that they will hopefully use beyond your wedding.  Consider taking time to explain to your guests why you chose the products and retailers. 

7.       Reduce and recycle the packaging material: 

a.       Reduce:  We eliminated wasteful shipping by arranging to have our local retailers hold our gifts so that we could pick up them up at one time. This also allowed us to cut out packaging materials. 

b.      Recycle:  We recycled the cardboard and other paper packing materials with our regular recycling.  We returned the packing peanuts to our local UPS store.

c.       Compost:  Tissue paper and wax coated paper are great additives to your compost pile. 

Green Barbeque Blues

I have carried a lot of worry that finding a sustainable barbeque solution was going to be impossible. I can count on one hand the number of barbeque restaurants in the entire southeast that do sustainable barbeque. This hallowed southern establishment buys from the big CAFO’s in North Carolina and drive some of the worst water pollution in the world. 

Enter Brent of White Lightning Barbeque Company.   Late 20′s, early 30′s. The youngest son in the family business. Southern to a T. His mom has made chicken salad for Sonny Perdue, our current Governor and a true south Georgia boy. 

Brent’s eyes danced as we ran the different options.  We were all in agreement.  Nice but nothing fancy. We need to give all the Yankees the real southern experience but not make it hokey.

The menu was pretty easy. Pulled pork, chicken salad, Brunswick stew, potato salad, cole slaw, sweet tea (plus lots of unsweet tea so the Yankees can dilute the real stuff), pecan pie, and banana pudding.

Then we got to the sourcing discussion.  Everything was perfect. My heart raced. It was like being on a first date with a boy you really liked and preparing to reveal a fact that you knew was going to be make or break. 

Before I knew it, we were done with round one with flying colors. All were in agreement. We’d do a local pig that was not from a large farm.

 ”Is free range better than local?” he asked. 

I was stopped dead in my tracks. A million caveats ran through my head. “How do I answer that? How do I give him an answer he can hold onto and not an ‘it depends’?” Sean gave a slight laugh. In a stressed out, fast clip I spit out, “we’d prefer a free range option from within the state.” Inside my heart sank. That was not the tone I wanted to portray. Ugg. My inner critic sang “now he thinks you’re. You made him thing green is hard.”  All the while I was hearing my new hero Farmer Scott’s, “those free range chicken operations are a bunch of bologna.”

In an instant that all passed. I overreacted. I realized Brent really was excited about this like we are. He wants to learn about going green. He is genuinely interested for himself and he sees the potential it has for his business. He is pumped that this wedding will give him the opportunity to learn.

My heart burst with joy. I could barely contain myself. We found what we were looking for!

Sustainable Registry Guide

The registry is a tough yet critical component to greening your wedding. You are voting with your pocketbook and asking your guests to do the same.  By giving your guests green registry options you are involving them in your adventure.  Additionally, you and your guests will be exposed to fun, new resources that hopefully will be used beyond your wedding.  

Reminder to the bride:  People will always give you a gift even if you go the charity route or ask for no gifts. By creating a green registry you are empowering your gifts to fulfill your wishes.

Suggestion to the guest:  Stick to the registry. Chances are that the couple has gone to great lengths to put together their registry.  If you find something green not on the list or from one of their preferred retailers, reach out to the couple before you make the purchase. There’s nothing worse than a green gift that is not used!

Green Product Features to Consider

Not sure what to look for in green products?  Afraid you’ll fall victim to green washing?  Here are a few key product aspects to look out for.

•          Bamboo:  Bamboo is alternative to cotton because it fast growing plant that does not require intense amounts of water and chemicals like cotton.  It has come under criticism because increase bamboo demand is causing increased deforestation in parts of the world like China.  For more information about bamboo, click here.
•          Carbon Neutral:   Scientists believe that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from anthropogenic sources are the culprits behind global warming (aka climate change).  Individuals, businesses, and governments are taking action to reducing their greenhouse emissions and becoming “carbon neutral”.  Carbon neutral means that a business or individual has taken action to not emit additional greenhouse gases in their operation.  Neutrality is achieved through a variety of steps including reducing electricity use, sourcing locally, and purchasing carbon offsets.  For more about climate change or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, visit Conservation International.
•          End Run or Scrap Material:  Sometimes factories will have scrap material after production. (Think left over scraps of dough when cutting out cookies.) Like reclaimed material, artists will use the scraps to create a new product.  A fun example is Vivaterra’s Flip Flop Door Mat.
•          Fair Trade:  According to the International Fair Trade Association, “fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South.” Click here to learn more about fair trade.
•          Green Business:  Business like Eco Bella and Viva Terra are green through the product lines they offer and the way in which they operate their business. For instance, Eco Bella’s owners carefully research all vendors and products to ensure they are green before carrying them. They also live by example. Not only was the store a green renovation but the store has also been certified to be Carbon Neutral.
•          Local Business:  Small businesses are the backbone of a strong local economy. Collectively, they employ the largest number of people in our country. More importantly, local businesses keep the wealth in your community. For more about the value of supporting local economies, visit the EF Schumacher Society.
•          Low VOC or No VOC: VOC stand for Volatile Organic Compounds. VOC’s are the beloved new car scent and the annoying smell of wet paint.  Have you ever gotten a headache from a room that’s recently been painted?  It’s because VOC’s are not good for us (i.e. they are toxic). A growing number of people are developing an acute sensitivity to VOC’s due to repeat exposure.  This is known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.  People with this disorder suffer from symptoms including headaches, skin irritation, and muscle pain.  Green product lines are emerging to offer low or no VOC products.  They are quickly becoming the standard because they offer the same quality at the same cost without the harmful side effects.  For more information, click here.
•          Organic Cotton:  Eco Bella explains it best:
  • Certified organic cotton is free from toxic pesticides and insecticides or other toxic chemicals.
  • Certified organic cotton production is highly regulated and sweat-shop and child-labor free.
  • Certified organic cotton is free from formaldehyde, toxic dyes and silicone which harm the earth, its soil, and its water supply.

•          Reclaimed or Discarded Material: Similar to recycled materials, many artists bring a second life to items that they find and repurpose. Great examples are Vivaterra’s Vintage Ruler Chair made from old yard stick rulers or the Root of the Earth Bowl from discarded tree roots.
•          Recycled Materials: 
  • Metal: Aluminum and steel are durable and sustainable metals if we reuse and recycle them optimally. According to Earth911, “making new aluminum cans from used cans takes 95 percent less energy and 20 recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.” (Source)
  • Glass: Unlike plastic, glass never wears out.  A ton of recycled glass saves 1,330 pounds of sand, 433 pounds of soda ash, 433 pounds of limestone, and 151 pounds of feldspar. (Source)

Bridal Tea in Baltimore

My first shower was today and it was a smashing success. My adventure in green the wedding continues. And it is going off with flying colors.

Today was hosted by Kelly, my matron of honor and my future sister in law. She found the perfect location- an inn from the 1700’s that is now a state park. It has been beautifully restored with original furniture. We learned the history of the house while we sipped tea and ate lovely, rich pastries. (I was so glad I had gone for a long run that morning!) We all left quite stuffed but pleasantly so.

It was the coming together of the old and new. My “second mother” from my childhood, my friend from grad school, an old friend of Sean’s, his childhood friends, and new family and friends. I was so touched that they all trekked quite a distance to celebrate with me. It truly meant the world.

The gifts. I was so nervous. How would my desires for a green registry play out?  Was it going to fail miserably?  Was I forcing too much of my belief system on other? Was I going to have to give up and resort to Macy’s and Dillard’s? 

I had a pit in the bottom of my stomach as I sat in the center of the room surrounded by a sea of colorful boxes and bags.

Within minutes I knew all of my worry was for naught. The success was better than my wildest dream. The experiment worked!  The organic cotton kitchen towels, decorative root bowl, bamboo salad bowl, fair trade baskets.

It was a wonderful experience for all. I was able to share why I selected the gifts on my registry. My guests told their stories of their shopping adventure. Sean’s grandmother was shocked I loved the bowl made out of papaya and beets she gave me. It gave the group a terrific laugh.  There was also a sharing and exchange of knowledge across generations that I expect happened much more frequently in years past where quilt circles were common.  As the shower progressed, I felt like I had stepped back in time and captured some of what we’ve lost in the modern busy world. 

The Maid of Cynicism

I do not claim to have more experience as a bridesmaid than many women. I have also been lucky in that the weddings I have been in have mostly been pleasant experiences. However, as many women know, when a close friend tells you she has gotten engaged, an internal monologue begins: How exciting! I wonder if she will ask me to be in it. I will be so mad if she doesn’t ask. Do I want to be in it? What if the dress sucks? Can I afford this? Why did I ever agree to be in it? Wait, has she even asked me yet?

Once Mandy asked me to be in the wedding (and the monologue concluded), I immediately agreed. Only seconds later did Mandy begin to explain how she wanted a green wedding — I began to have visions of a granola-paved aisle, organic cotton togas, and a sapling at each place setting. I knew I was in for an adventure. I have been friends with Mandy since our freshman year in college, so I was confident that the greenness would not be gaudy, but would be elegant, understated, and exactly what she and Sean would want.

Obviously, we started with the fun stuff – finding a bridesmaid dress. Well, it sounded fun. Then I realized we would have to take into consideration fabrics, body types, color, cost, locality, and (the one thing that is supposed to make everyone feel better about this entire process) will we ever be able to wear the dress again?! Since Mandy and I are girls who always take the bull by the horns – or the dress by the straps, in this case – we had, in no time, ordered 10 dresses from various websites (Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, J. Crew, and one nonrefundable leftover sample that only came in one size) and had them delivered to Mandy and Sean’s house. In perfect Mandy form, she immediately began planning a party for several of the bridesmaids to try on the dresses; a party replete with food, alcohol, dresses, local experts, and (every girls nightmare when trying on dresses) a film crew. Being that there really will be a film crew at the try-on party, I must go work out now, but I will write a recap post-event and may or may not include photos.

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