Green Living Wedding Ideas

Bring nature inside during your wedding to add beauty to the wedding reception. Green living strategies will help you create a wonderful wedding celebration. You can also delight guests by giving them a living gift from nature as a wedding favor, rather than just another vase or other item they do not need.

Instead of Gifts ask for Donations

One way to honor the earth is to ask wedding guests to give donations to a favorite charity that helps the environment rather than giving wedding gifts. This helps nature organizations get donations and saves you from getting too many objects that you do not want. One wonderful charity that helps the environment is ArborDay.org.

Holiday Weddings

Make a wreath from pine tree trimmings available at garden stores. Then decorate it with items from nature like pomegranates, dried orange slices, and a chain of cranberries.

Give out favors of packets of pine tree seeds. This favor will give guests a tree that will grow for decades. Gather the seeds yourself by shaking pine cones to release the seed. Or buy the seeds on sites like Ebay or Etsy.

Decorate the reception area with wreaths handmade with pinecones. You could wrap white or pink or holiday covered ribbons around the wreath to add a touch of color. Or use a colorful ribbon to hang the wreaths. As the wedding reception winds down, give out the wreaths to the bridesmaids or other special guests.

Summer Weddings

Serve locally grown vegetables and fruits at the wedding reception. Give out small baskets of colorful locally grown fruits as wedding favors.

Grow your own flowers for the wedding. This is better for the environment than using flowers from the florist, which may have been shipped long distances, thus causing pollution. Flowering plants such as geraniums, orchids and petunias are beautiful in pots on a table at a wedding reception. These flowers will add much color and beauty to the event.

Give out packets of seeds for lilac trees as wedding favors. This tree has a very romantic smell. For decades to come, when the lilac tree bursts into bloom in the spring, wedding guests will remember your special wedding day.

Give out small herb plants including basil, chives and oregano as a wedding favor, suggests MarthaStewart.com. This favor will help guests add flavor to meals for years to come. It is a thoughtful favor that will be well appreciated by guests.

Give guests baskets of bulbs to grow daffodils as a wedding favor. The daffodil is a beautiful and cheerful flower. When they burst from the earth at the end of winter your wedding guests will thank you again for the joy this flower brings to any yard.

Sources:

-Ideas from weddings I've attended

Martha Stewart