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Have a green wedding!

Making eco-friendly choices for wedding can be a challenge, but with greener choices, you save money as well as the environment.

Here are some ideas to get you started, compiled by David Shreeve, Environmental Consultant for the Church of England.

1. Dress conscious: Buy bride’s and bridesmaids’ dresses second-hand - Oxfam have at least seven bridal departments throughout the country and grooms have been hiring their suits for years.
2. Grow your own: Use flowers from your own or other local gardens, with permission.
3. Re-use, re-recycle: Presents on your wedding list can be from recycling sources, or second hand. 
4. Green gifts: For those with a passion for home-grown produce, why not consider an allotment or some hens on the wedding list?
5. Wrap carefully: Request that family and friends use recycled wrapping paper for their gifts.
6. Thoughtful invitations: Wedding invites and orders of service can be done on recycled stationery.
7. Less fuel: Consider your transport to church. If it’s close enough, walk to the wedding, or consider ways of travelling that cut down on fuel use – a horse and carriage for example.
8. Catch the bus: Rather than having guests travel from the church to the reception venue in their cars, arrange for a bus to take them all together.
9. All under one roof: Some churches have facilities to hold the reception either in the church itself or in an adjoining church hall. Ask at your church what they can do.
10. Romantic lights: Candles in church are not only romantic but save on electricity too.

Do you have more ideas for an eco-friendly wedding? Send them to us at weddings@c-of-e.org.uk and we'll show some of the best suggestions on this page.

One of our Vicars from Yeovil, Somerset, has said http://www.ethicalweddings.com and the Government's web page on greener weddings both have some good ideas.

Read about our Real Wedding couple Jessica and Joe, who made greener choices for their big day.


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