Green Up Your Wedding

Did you know that an Ann Arbor couple 'greened' up their marriage and you simply could do it too?

The trend toward green weddings certainly isn't new, but experts say it has evolved to allow husbands and wifes to incorporate their unique personal preferences and still afford their special day.

Most people are interested in a green wedding and once they hear about what it entails, they end up going a different route. Our bride and groom "heroes" Engel and Dyer considered they wouldn't be able to keep everything perfectly green, but were going to try their hardest. And the most essential element was to make the day educative as well as fun for guests.

The couple also focused on little details they said make a big difference.

• The bride wore an heirloom - a vintage green dress that had been her great-grandmother's in the 1930's.
• Her ring was made with recycled gold and had a beryl stone instead of a diamond.
• Her makeup was certified organic.
• Guests were given local lavender buds - rather than sachets of rice - to throw in celebration.
• Tables were covered with local wildflowers and locally sourced foods.
• Leftovers and unused food were recycled (by sending to local farms) or reused.
• They found a generator which was solar powered and able to generate enough power to run the lights and the audio system they needed for the band.
  

For all their efforts, they still made some choices they knew weren't the most eco-friendly options.

While they served Michigan white wine beverages and a Michigan sparkling cider, they couldn't find a red from the state they liked. So they decided to have a red from the U.S. for that option. And they could've gone with Internet invites rather than printing and mailing invitations, but the bride said she felt paper invitations were important - on recycled paper, of course.

So you? What can You do to 'green up' your marriage day? While green weddings are becoming more famous, planning and pulling off the event is not as easy as one might think.

Sorting through claims of environmentally friendliness when shopping in today's marketplace is a big enough challenge for standard purchases, let alone for such an emotionally charged and personal event as a wedding.

The best way to reduce the impact of an event is to execute a life cycle analysis on different elements of the marriage. For instance, where is that food coming from, how much energy is expended to produce it, how does it get to your plate and where do the leftovers go?

While meat typically takes more energy to produce than fruits and vegetables, considering how far some vegetables and fruit need to travel might let them have a larger carbon footprint.

The best way to cut back on an event's carbon footprint is to cut back on the number of guests invited. Fewer guests mean fewer meals, fewer needs for centerpieces and other decor and fewer miles traveled to reach the ceremony.

About the writer - Lucy E. Thomason writes articles for the event planning courses blog, her personal hobby web log focused on recommendations to help people figure out how to organize a green event to spend less energy and reduce carbon footprints.