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Getting Married? Have A Green One!

28 Mar 2006 by Paul Northup

According to Climate Care, an organisation that offsets harmful carbon dioxide emissions, the average wedding emits around 14.5 tons of CO2, markedly more than the 12 tons emitted by the average person during a whole year.

But according to Natasha Courtenay-Smith of The Independent, the happiest day of your life doesn’t have to cost the earth.
Here’s some highlights of the article – read the whole piece here.

The Dress
“Most wedding dresses are made in factories in the Far East, where there are huge problems with labour exploitation and poor working conditions,” says designer Joanne Mackin, 39, who specialises in made-to-measure environmentally friendly wedding dresses. “Then add in the air miles and CO2 emissions resulting from transporting the dresses back to the UK and you can begin to see the problem.”

Mackin uses natural organic and fair trade fabrics as well as ‘Peace Silk’ to make dresses from her front room. “Traditionally, people turn their noses up at Peace Silk (which is made from the damaged cocoon that remains after the silk worm has hatched) as it’s thought to be inferior in quality,” says Mackin (whose dresses can be ordered from www.wholly-jo.co.uk and are priced from £450). “But most people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.”
Other options for green gowns include buying second-hand or vintage dresses. Try eBay, or go to www.oxfam.org.uk for a list of Oxfam shops that have their own bridal departments.

The Presents
Say goodbye to bed linen and toasters and hello to goats, trees and lavatories. There are now plenty of companies such as Good Gifts (www.goodgifts.org) and Oxfam Unwrapped (www.oxfamunwrapped.com) offering wedding lists in the form of gifts for developing countries.

Companies such as Natural Collection (www.naturalcollection.com) have huge ranges of green wedding gifts that can be enjoyed at home such as beauty products, clothes and household items, all of which are environmentally friendly and fair trade, and organisations such as the Carbon Neutral Company and Climate Care provide gifts that offset CO2 emissions.

The Honeymoon
A single long-haul flight could undo all your good work. But if you do want to go further afield, meaningful trips, such as panda conservation in China and orphanage projects in Sri Lanka are becoming more popular with newlyweds, according to the travel company www.Opodo.co.uk.

The Confetti
While foil won’t biodegrade and can choke birds, paper confetti contains bleach and artificial colours that leach into the ground. Ten years ago, Charles Hudson set up The Real Flower Petal Confetti Company in response to the problem. He now grows 16 acres of flowers, at his farm in Worcestershire. His petals have been thrown at the weddings of Madonna and Catherine Zeta-Jones. “All our flowers are hand-picked and organic, and our drying process is done on racks without using any artificial heat,” he says. For natural confetti go to www.confettidirect.co.uk.

The Flowers
Source seasonal flowers from a local organic grower, who can probably even grow you flowers to order for your big day. Winter brides can opt for the Isles of Scilly scented narcissi, grown organically by family farmers. They can be ordered from www.scentednarcissi.co.uk and are transported to the mainland by ferry.

Read the whole of this very fine article – and email it to someone you know who is planning to get married. Thanks to The Independent it’s all here.

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