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.

You are Beautiful!

  

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

I got a very special gift from my oldest daughter, who is 7. She drew a picture of me at school and gave it to me. This poem was on the back. She is getting so good at art! That is something I know she didn’t get from me. 🙂

Happy Earth Day!!!

Hello Green Beauties!

Today is Earth Day! We celebrate this planet that we all call home…even though I believe we should treat EVERYDAY as if it’s Earth Day!

Starting now, try to “green” something in your everyday life and then continue that. Whether it’s buying organic food, changing out your makeup to be organic, using cloth bags instead of plastic, switching to stainless steel mugs instead of buying plastic bottles, even walking somewhere instead of driving…every little bit helps.

This is a chalk drawing that my seven year old daughter did! She did it all on her own! I love that she has my passion at a young age as I did.

Stay Beautiful and Stay Green!!! 

Happy Earth Day!!!

Happy Easter!

 Hope you have a Happy Easter to those who celebrate! 

Happy Passover!

  

Hope everyone who celebrates Passover had a wonderful Seder last night!

The FABULOUS SPRINGTIME!

“And Spring arose of the garden fair,

like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast

rose from he dreams of its wintry rest.”

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Today is one of my favorite days…not because it’s my birthday…:-) But because it is the FIRST DAY OF SPRING!!! I love this time because all the flowers are blooming, trees are getting their leaves, mother nature is AMAZING!!! This is truly a FABULOUS season!!!

Bring on the Spring…

My Fabulous “Booger Boys”…

It’s Friday and it’s time to talk about something FABULOUS! I know what you are thinking…Booger Boys? How is that fabulous…sounds gross. It doesn’t have anything to do with being “green” and eco friendly, but it is something fabulous! 

12 years ago, my husband, Nick Moya, wrote and illustrated his very first children’s book called, Booger Boys and the Eye of Osiris. Last year, we decided to revisit it and see if we could self-publish it. After lots of research, we found Createspace, which is a division of Amazon. We put it up and it was amazing to see his first book for sale and printed! Since then, he has written two more. Booger Boys and the Mystery of the Missing Things is out and sold on Amazon along with the first. The third will be out by the summer. Stay tuned.

My sister is a Third Grade teacher and she has been reading these books to her class! They are loving them! It is awesome to have little fans and that is what he likes about it. He wants to see his books in the hands of all kids! Getting kids interested in books and reading is his main goal! At my sister’s school, they have a program called Peacebuilders. This is where they will praise people and what they have done. Some of the kids in her class decided to write to my husband and I would love to share them with you now.

These books are great for all ages really. If I had to say a specific age group, I would say Middle Grade/Young Readers. They are full of adventure, mystery, friendship and much more. Nick was and still is, inspired by Comic Books. We designed the cover to look like a comic book, but inside you will find a mix of both Chapter books and Comics! I am so proud of my husband and this FABULOUS accomplishment!

If you have kids, boys and girls, please check out these books! They are FABULOUS! (And I’m not just saying that because he is my husband. They really are awesome!) Thank you for your support!

They are available on BN.com and Amazon. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!