The guide to planning a more sustainable and eco friendly wedding - The series.
Eco freindly Styling and Decorations
Totally coincidental but fitting that it is Earth Day, and we bring you this new series on how to be a little more eco friendly with your wedding (and event) planning. Enjoy… And remember every teeny tiny little bit counts!
Eco friendly confetti made out of dried leaves. Image by Billie Brook.
Modern weddings are often bucking trends and focusing on having a day that reflects the couple and their values. If being environmentally friendly is something you care about, then it makes sense to factor that into your planning. Like any event, weddings create a huge amount of waste but there are many easy changes you can make that will reduce your event’s impact on the planet.
We’ve teamed up with the talented and passionate Billie Brook to bring you this amazing blog series and guide on having a more sustainable wedding celebration. Billie is a great inspiration not only because of her fabulous wedding photography but she is always looking for more ways to minimise her and her business’ impact on the environment. She is the go to eco friendly photographer, and here, she shares her tips.
The checklist: how to Be more eco friendly with your Wedding Styling and Decorations
Hire - not buy.
Incorporate the pre-loved, repurposed and up-cycled.Say no to single-use plastics.
Plastic straws, cups, balloons… there are often fantastic alternatives, and some you may not even need.Go digital.
Create online invites, RSVP’s and/ or a wedding website.Go local and seasonal.
Not just with suppliers that use local produce - like food and florals, but also with those little details like favours, wedding signs or decorations.Keep things minimal
Make the most of the natural backdrops and/ or gorgeous architecture we have around us.Recycle and pay it forward.
Go the extra mile and think about what can be reused recycled, or donated after the wedding.Work with, and trust the wedding vendors.
They will be more than happy to oblige, and help bring the magic on the day!
Less is more! A great example of a beautifully decorated, eco friendly wedding table. Image courtesy of Billie Brook.
Hire, not buy
Styling and decorations.
Styling can be an overwhelming thing to think about in regards to weddings. Most of us get engaged in a whirlwind of happiness and are then thrown in the deep end of event planning. Pinterest and online inspiration is really helpful for ideas but can also make decision making confusing. Aiming for eco-friendly options can be the perfect way to guide your styling and narrow down your options. And it doesn’t mean you have to skimp on beauty!
The first rule is to hire, not buy. There are so many wonderful hire companies that have beautiful furniture and decorations to rent and this is the greenest option. Using a company local to your venue has the least impact in terms of transportation (and will save you on travel costs, too!).
Image by Billie Brook.
“Things just ain't made like they use to be - in design or function. We believe in re-using and re-purposing items so that we tread lightly on the earth and hiring does this perfectly” - Charlotte from Handmaid.
Say no to single-use plastics
Balloons, floating lanterns, single use plastic decorations are very harmful for the environment. You will be able to find some fantastic biodegradable alternatives, but if not, consider something else and ditch them altogether.
Try sourcing items through wedding groups online as couples often give away items that they’ve used at their wedding. If you do buy new, consider items that you will re-use yourself in your home or office, or that you can donate after the wedding.
Again, try to reuse items throughout the day. Props or decorations at the ceremony can be moved into the reception room. See how many times you can reuse each item!
Confetti. Ditch anything that will end up in the rubbish! There are so many options if you want a colourful ceremony exit or a sparkly time during your photo shoot. Choose biodegradable confetti, flower petals, herbs etc, maybe make your own instead! Check out our how-to guide.
Ditch the plastic confetti!
Use flower petals, herbs etc, to maybe make your own instead! Check out our how-to guide.
Go Digital
In this digital world, there’s not much need to print invitations at all and most of them get thrown out in the end anyway. You could have a wedding website, they have the additional benefit of being considerably cheaper, and the convenience of logging all of your responses in one place. There is so much you can do with a wedding website - check out our check out our earlier blog post if you want to find out more.
Or you can use an email list and send invites that way. You can still have a beautiful design but just keep it online.
If you really want to printed invites, use recycled paper and vegetable based inks and/or printing companies that minimise their emissions.
Recycled paper invites with vegetable based inks. Image by Billie brook.
Go local and seasonal
Go for suppliers that use local produce - especially when it comes to food and florals. Contributing to the local economy is another way support the place we live and love, and it all helps to reduce our carbon footprint too!
Flowers.
There’s nothing like fresh flowers but they can be wasteful. Use local vendors and find florists who grow their own flowers and are environmentally conscious. You can also ask your florist to use natural materials to tie/wrap and transport your flowers. Organising your own flowers through family and friend’s gardens is another option. Reuse flowers throughout the day so you cut down on the amount you use. Ceremony flowers can be moved to the reception venue. Bridal bouquets can be placed on the head table as decorations etc. To go the extra mile, if having your wedding at a venue, consider sharing your flowers with the wedding before or after yours and/or donating the flowers to rest homes/ homeless shelters or women’s centres afterwards.
Favours.
How many wedding favours have you kept - many…? First option is to skip them all together! They’re not a must have. You are already throwing a sweet party so you should feel no pressure to give anyone individual gifts. And it means one less thing to think about.
If you do want to share some extra love, something green, edible or re-usable is the way to go. Again, seasonal and locally sourced food or drink is also a great option. And if you’re feeling brave, try making something yourself! Jams, oils, gin, chocolates - something sweet is always a crowd-pleaser.
Table styling and signage.
Along with the flower tips from above, using natural and reusable materials are the way to go. Linen, hessian and hired table cloths and runners. Use natural table decorations such as wood, plants, vintage tableware and crockery. Say no to plastics (see checklist number 2), especially single use. If you need disposables, make sure they are biodegradable/compostable alternatives.
Place names…again, do you need them at all? A popular option is to designate a table to a group of people and then let them choose their own specific seat, this doubles as a useful social starter too.
If you want to arrange people then consider using reusable items from a hire company, like a chalk board, recycled card or even write on found leaves, pebbles etc. instead of printing out all your welcome signs, run-sheets and table settings.
These little wedding details are another area that you can save money, be creative, all the while being low impact.
Bride and groom framed with natural back drop. Photo by Jenny Siaosi.
KEEPING THINGS MINIMAL
Having said that about all the decorations, don’t forget to make the most of the natural backdrops or gorgeous architecture that so many of our venues have to offer! When the trees make the perfect (whether dramatic or dreamy) backdrop, who needs an extra archway?
We are also seeing some stunningly simple decor based purely around linens and greenery - simplicity is key when it comes to planning and creating the perfect setting.
Simple wedding table. Image by Billie Brook.
Recycle and pay it forward
As said before, go the extra mile! If having your wedding at a venue, consider sharing your flowers with the wedding before or after yours and/or donating the flowers to rest homes/ homeless shelters or women’s centres afterwards.
Work with, and trust the wedding vendors
We’re lucky enough to live in a country filled with fantastic local produce, florals, botanicals, talented suppliers and creatives, who have found ways to be more kind to our earth. And they are there to create your most awesome celebration, so talk with them at any stage you’d like an alternative, and together you might find even more ways to have that sustainable, eco friendly, maybe even zero waste wedding!
your Eco Friendly list for local Florists, Styling, hire and Decorations
Flowers and Styling:
Purposefully don’t purchase any of the single use plastic floristry products, instead they construct things out of the materials they already have or reuse items that previously served another purpose. Reusing as much as possible. They’ve also started making fully compostable installations. Previously some of the materials can be reused but if it can all happily thrown onto the compost pile or in the fire when it’s dried out that is even better. So I’m using up the last of my oasis and moving to as much as I can fully compostable or biodegradable materials. There will still be floristry tape which is a plastic material although not much is used thankfully, pins, screws, chicken wire used at times. I think because I started out that way (apart from the oasis) it has been much easier for me, I think traditional trained florists would find it harder to move to alternative methods.
They aim to be as sustainable and eco friendly as possible, by growing the flowers we use and for any extras we source from other local NZ growers promoting 'grown not flown'. Their flowers are spray free apart from our roses where we use an organically certified spray and we use everything we grow...either fresh or dried. They do not use any floral foam, including in installations and we do not use single use plastic either. They use things that can be composted such as twine to tie bouquets and fresh and dried wreaths are also tied with twine and the bases are grapevine from a local vineyard. They also have patches of flowers in our garden specially for the bees and butterflies. We even use compostable tape on brown paper bouquet wrapping!
Other Florists who are able to help with your eco friendly efforts:
Flowers by Megan ; Serene Occasions; Suzette Herrick - Based in Martinborough. Over in Kāpiti: Bee and Bloom
Hire
Are always adding quality vintage products or products made from recycled materials to their inventory and are conscious consumers when adding new items - eg we love bamboo because it is such a sustainable plant and regrows when cut. Their delicate items are wrapped in cloth or alternative bubblewrap (ie cardboard). And they are conscious in the office area - eg using energy saving bulbs, only printing where necessary and recycling waste. They are socially responsible, we have committed each year to give to our local communities in various ways be it donations or products. For example this weekend Sadie will be a coffee cart at a local school fair fundraiser, as will some of our hire items. We have also donate to not-for-profits doing good work in our communities close to our heart - Kāpiti Youth Support and The Kāpiti Food bank are two such recent recipients. We have been climate positive (ie more than offset) with our carbon emissions on all Handmaid travel to our events.
Most items are vintage/retro that have been bought second-hand, so this is helps towards keeping consumption down. Everything you hire comes packed & ready to travel. Re-purposing wherever possible, rather than buying new...eg: packaging trays for china cups are up-cycled grape trays from the supermarket, old cushions and foam offcuts are used as stuffing for the ottomans, and with broken/damaged items, they will always fix them rather than replace when they can.
Festival Hire Wairarapa
If you are after balloons - ask for their biodegradable ones! They also have a bio friendly steriliser machine which recycles its waste, recycles its heat and treats water via an osmosis unit. In short all your equipment will be sterilised to the highest level with as little impact on the environment!
Click here for other hire places to check, they will be happy to work with you on your eco friendly - zero waste wedding.
Brought to you by the wonderful Billie Brook.