Green Weddings: The New Eco-Trend That's Gaining Popularity

By Amy Farnsworth , Christian Science Monitor. Posted June 8, 2009.

Haily Zaki and Brian Tuey trekked four miles up southern California's San Gabriel Mountains with 32 friends, accompanied by pack mules carrying granola bars and organic lamb. There, in a propane- and hydro-powered campsite dining hall bedecked with pine cones, they exchanged wedding vows.

Tara Brown and Michael Selders incorporated 21 "eco-initiatives" into their wedding at Houston's Four Seasons Hotel. To make up for the pollution caused by their honeymoon flight to Hawaii, the Selderses purchased carbon offsets, a means of reducing carbon emissions by contributing money to plant trees or develop renewable-energy projects.

Dana Wilmert wore a 1950s sea foam green prom dress purchased for $1 from a thrift store when she married Johnny Damm in DeLand, Fla. She made the paper for her invitations and stitched magazines together to make the envelopes. At the reception, her guests ate local, organic fare served on biodegradable bamboo plates, which were later composted.

For these -- and some other -- brides and grooms, wedding traditions and festivities are taking on a distinctly greener hue. These ecoconscious couples are donating leftover reception food to shelters, planting trees in honor of their guests in lieu of giving favors, and eschewing gifts in favor of contributions to the charity of their choice.

This is no fleeting trend, insists Corina Beczner, founder of Vibrant Events, a sustainable-event consulting business in San Francisco. "This is something that's here to stay," she says. "It's an alignment with people's values in the world."

In a world in which "green" is increasingly appended to just about everything as the adjective of choice, defining a green wedding isn't easy.

For some, it is no more elaborate than limiting the guest list to reduce carbon emissions. It may mean organizing carpools for the guests or hiring biofuel buses and hybrid limos. Or it may mean simply recycling that old family diamond as an engagement ring.

Still, there are many shades of green. The Tueys' three-day camping trip wedding cost $6,500. Though Ms. Brown-Selders wouldn't comment on the cost of her wedding, she hired Jessica Zapatero, founder and director of Green Lily Events in Houston, who caters to brides with budgets over $30,000. Ms. Zapatero helped Brown-Selders find an elegant raw-silk dress and yarmulkes made from recycled cardboard.

"A green wedding is not just wearing a burlap sack and walking down the aisle barefoot," says Mireya Navarro, author of "Green Wedding: Planning Your Eco-friendly Celebration."

Precious as some of the efforts to go green may seem to some, what all green weddings share is an effort to conserve resources and reduce waste, to make a commitment to the planet the newlyweds will live on as they make a lifelong commitment to each other.

"It just seemed natural to me to want to green my wedding," says Brown-Selders. "Once I learned how much waste accumulated from one wedding, I learned I [couldn't] do this."

Not everyone is running out to rent portable solar panels to power a DJ booth for the reception. Of the 2.5 million weddings that take place each year, just a small fraction could be considered green, Ms. Navarro says.

That interest may be picking up, however, according to a 2009 David's Bridal Internet survey. It found that 45 percent of some 500 engaged or recently married women had considered some aspect of the environment in their wedding planning decisions.

Although hard figures are difficult to find, evidence of the growth of green weddings can also be seen in the availability of green wedding planners, caterers who serve only organic food, and carbon-
neutral DJs and photographers.

But with the popularity of green weddings comes a word of caution: Not everything is as green as it may seem. "Greenwashing is happening," says Ms. Beczner, who warns that some companies are calling their products green without any substantiation. She cautions couples to research carefully.

Since launching her business in 2006, Beczner has planned 20 green weddings. She was already seeing the growth of green weddings when Michelle Kozin wrote "Organic Weddings" in 2002. Soon afterward, sustainable jewelry companies such as greenKarat emerged as conflicts over the mining of diamonds became a mainstream issue. Other green companies followed. Everything from "Martha Stewart Living" to green wedding websites such as wedvert began focusing on ecofriendly nuptials.

Navarro says green weddings began gaining even more traction after former Vice President Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," brought home the dangers of climate change. "People are trying to do their part," she says.

"By now it's more of an extension of what people are already doing in their lives. People planning green weddings are people who recycle at home, buy food from farmers' markets, drive a hybrid. It's a mind-set Americans are adopting more and more."

Brown-Selders's awakening came in Oregon in 2004 when someone yelled at her for throwing a bottle into the trash. She was surprised: That's what everyone did in her Houston condo complex.

But the memory of the incident stuck. So when 200 guests gathered at her wedding this past August, they were greeted with floral centerpieces featuring local flowers, an organic wedding cake, and programs on handmade lotka paper from Nepal.

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Amy Farnsworth is a staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor.

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