Green Weddings Part 1: The Venue

If you are planning on going green for your wedding, more power to you! There are lots of ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint…even on one of the biggest day of your life! All you need to do is remember the three R’s in every category of your wedding day: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

I know what you are thinking…how can picking a venue reduce my carbon footprint? It can, you just need to ask the right questions. Questions, that most brides wouldn’t even think to ask. I will list some of the main questions you should ask to help you make the right decision for you and your Groom-to-Be.

• Do they have a recycling policy?
• Are you able to host the ceremony and reception there? This helps reduce traveling pollution to and from each site.
•  Where do they purchase their food and do they support local or regional farmers?
•  Do they compost leftover food or do they donate leftovers to a local garden?
• Do they have any decor items on site that you would be able to reuse?
• Are you able to bring in your own baker so you have the option of getting an organic wedding cake?
• Are you able to reuse floral arrangements from the previous night’s event for bathrooms, entrance tables, etc.?

Those are just a few of the questions that you can ask your venue in addition to all the others that you would normally ask. For more, you can check out Eco-Chic Weddings by Emily Elizabeth Anderson. She has a lot of great information!

When planning your wedding and looking into the venue, you want to support businesses that are doing in regard to sustainability. Make sure they are on the same wavelength as you are in regards to green practices. There are lots of great places that you can get married in such as: a park, or you can support a Non-Profit by having it at a Museum or a garden. A great place is a Vineyard! You would be supporting local farming, plus most of them have a restaurant on site which would give you the same benefits of having the reception at a restaurant. I have done many wedding here in Temecula at the local Vineyards! They are beautiful!

Check out these websites to help you find a green venue by you.

www.greenbrideguide.com. This is my favorite place to go for information on green weddings.

http://greenhotels.com

http://greenweddingshoes.com/top-26-coolest-wedding-venues/

The knot also has a way that you can check Eco-friendly when searching.

I hope that I have given you some good information as a start of this green weddings series! Thank you for reading and please pass it along to those who will benefit from this information!

“Being Green is Beautiful!”

 

The New Wedding Wednesdays Heads Up!

I haven’t been writing in almost a year! A lot has happened…moved twice and bought a house! That has been taking a lot of my attention, but I am trying to get back into this. I have thought about what I wanted to do on Wedding Wednesdays and decided that I was going to help you plan an Eco Friendly Wedding! Each week, I will talk about the different aspects it takes to plan and execute a wedding. I hope that it is helpful to you or someone else that you know that is in the planning stages right now.

Here is a wedding planning checklist that I have created for you to help this planning process go as simply as possible! As you can see, one of the first things on the list is to find a venue…so that is where I will start. Next week, I will talk about how to choose a venue that goes with your eco friendly vibe!

Yes, today is Thursday and not Wednesday, however, I wanted to give you a heads up as to what will be coming starting next week! I look forward to sharing with you lots of great information about creating a green wedding.