A Nice Day for a Green Wedding

When it comes to weddings, the "in" color is green - local brides and wedding industry people share their experiences making the big day an environmentally friendly event.

BETHANY HOPKINS, NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

April 28, 2008

Courtney Davis, who is planning her Sept. 6. wedding with fiance Patrick Nichols, had to work a little harder than usual to get the save-the-date announcements she wanted. She was looking for products that used a minimum of 30 percent post- consumer, chlorine-free recycled paper.

"We found a few places that would do them," said Ms. Davis, who is getting married in the Santa Barbara area. Both she and Mr. Nichols are environmental planners working in Ventura. "Then I found a printing company, and they didn't usually do the recycled paper thing, but they went through the effort to find a source for their paper that could get them the recycled content."

With wedding season fast approaching, the hot new color for some brides is green. For every detail of a wedding, there's a way to soften its impact on the environment and still make it a beautiful event. Whether it's reusing and recycling materials, choosing organic and local products, or supporting sustainable and waste-reducing practices, there's always a way to lessen the environmental impact of your big day.

"Greening" your wedding by making it as environmentally friendly as possible is catching on with brides across the country as well as with the wedding industry, and that includes the South Coast. Local wedding planner Jill La Fleur, who started putting together a green wedding package last year, hasn't seen a high demand yet, but said but she doesn't think the environmental issue will disappear anytime soon.

"I don't think it's a trend necessarily. I think that it's something that's going to become more and more in demand and commonplace ... this whole area tends to be on the cutting edge as far as environmentalism goes. I've had a few people ask about it, and what brides have started to do is try to incorporate some aspects of trying to take care of the environment."

Last July she sent out an e-mail to the vendors she works with on weddings to see if any of them offered green services or wanted to start doing so, and she was pleased with the responses.

"A lot of the vendors that I've been working with are starting to jump on board and start thinking about how they can offer a green package," she said.

Ms. Davis has noticed the change too.

"I love how it's getting hip to green," she said. She and Mr. Nichols, who both lived in town while attending Santa Barbara City College, are trying to make their wedding as green as possible, and so far they've gotten plenty of support. "I think people are a lot more open to doing this stuff. It just makes sense."

Mrs. La Fleur said that one of the first things couples want to do to green their weddings is change the food.

"It's wonderful that they're using organic products, but also the food just taste better-- it's just really much better when it's organically grown and locally grown," she said.

Having the food, wedding cake and rehearsal dinner incorporate local and organic products as possible is a good start. Ms. Davis said her wedding will do the same with beverages.

"We're going to do local and/or biodynamic wines. For beers, to cut down on the waste, we're going to do kegs."

Weddings can also be green when it comes to greenery by using local and organic farmers and including in-season flowers for bouquets, boutonnieres and arrangements.

"Florists are trying to go to the organic farms and get flowers, or talking to the brides about doing potted things and being able to replant them after the event," Mrs. La Fleur said. Ms. Davis is choosing that second option.

"Our centerpieces are going to be handmade clay planters from an artist in Ojai. They're going to be filled with native California wildflowers and herbs, and they're going to be potted." She also plans to give her centerpieces to wedding guests.

Sustainable centerpieces can also include creative alternatives, like the ones Santa Barbara native Paola Sepulveda Basmajian, and her husband Carlton Basmajian, both urban planners, had at their Feb. 29 wedding reception at the Santa Barbara Harbor.

"We used green apples with the idea that they didn't necessarily have to be thrown out afterwards; they could still be consumed. They were put into large cylindrical vases filled with water, so the green apples were sitting at the bottom of the vase with little votives floating on top." After the wedding, the bride's father took the apples to a baker friend to be made into apple pies.

She added that while she didn't have the time to plan a fully green wedding , she still looked for ways to be environmentally friendly. Making one type of decoration do double duty was another way they cut back on excessive waste.

"My bouquet doubled as a centerpiece for our sweetheart table at the reception -- it fit in a vase that we put in the middle."

If you can't entirely eliminate waste, such as with save-the-dates and invitations, then try to use recycled paper.

"Our save-the-dates ... are bookmarks with 30 percent post consumer chlorine-free recycled paper. They're hemp tassels, and the envelopes are 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper," she said. They plan on doing the same thing for their invitations and envelopes.

For some services, like photography, switching to from film to digital can prevent wasted paper. However, even a printed photo album can be made with sustainable practices.

"One of our album companies just released a green album," said local wedding photographer Tim Halberg, who shoots digital photos and is trying to offer greener wedding photo options. "It's 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper, but even cooler than that is the factory that the album is made in -- 100 percent of the energy for the factory comes from wind turbines."

When it comes to weddings, travel can have huge environmental impact, especially if guests arrive by plane or drive long distances. You can mitigate the travel by buying carbon offsets, which fund carbon reducing projects. Some wedding favors allow you to offset carbon use or support environmental issues.

"Some favors that are coming out are donating a portion of each favor that you buy to whatever cause that you want, or just toward an environmental cause," Mrs. La Fleur said.

Encouraging guests to carpool or use fuel-efficient vehicles can also help. Mrs. Sepulveda Basmajian said they had even wanted to have guests take the Santa Barbara Waterfront Shuttle from the wedding site to the reception.

"One thing ... that didn't end up happening but we wanted to do, was we wanted to take public transport," she said.

Choosing a low-impact or sustainable location for the ceremony and reception can also help keep your environmental impact low. Mr. Basmajian and Mrs. Sepulveda Basmajian, who currently live in Blacksburg, Va., chose the clocktower at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse -- a spot with sweeping city views and a guest limit of 25.

"We decided ... we were going to make some decisions that sort of forced us to have a small wedding. That was part of why we chose to have it in the Courthouse clocktower," she said.

Ms. Davis and Mr. Nichols are holding both their wedding and reception at the Orella Ranch.

"It's outside, so we're not going to do a whole lot of decorating," Ms. Davis said. The couple chose a site that practices composting, organic farming and sustainable building.

They're doing the same thing with their rings and clothing. Their wedding rings are made from ecologically sourced metal with non-conflict stones that do not contribute to the stripping of the environment or the violence associated with gem smuggling. For clothing, they are trying to find either hemp or organic cotton suits for the groomsmen and are letting bridesmaids choose their own styles so they're more likely to reuse them.

Reusable goods are always a good option, because it takes energy to recycle materials and make them functional again.

"We're also going to be recycling all of the items that can be recycled, but we aren't going to have a whole bunch of recycled items. We're going to have washable plates and serving dishes and utensils, and we're also doing linens," Ms. Davis said.

Making all of the adjustments needed to have a fully "green" wedding can be on overwhelming task, but as Mrs. La Fleur pointed out, even little environmental improvements can be the start of a change.

"I like that (wedding industry) people are being a little bit more conscious about it, and realizing that to some of these couples, it's important to them," Mrs. La Fleur said. "I think that people in general realize that we're a multi-million dollar industry, and we contribute a lot in a negative ways to the environment ... but if there's some little thing that each one of can do to help, I think that we're all trying to make that effort."