How green is your wedding?

By Sheilah Downey
   
How green is your wedding?
 
With the race to save the planet fueling the need to carbon down our lifestyles, "green" is rapidly becoming the new "white" when it comes to wedding planning.

"Green Wedding," a new book by New York Times environmental writer Mireya Navarro, details the ins and oh-so-outs of scaling down the carbon footprint of the modern wedding.

As big issues like melting ice caps and carbon emissions seem insurmountable, will changing wedding traditions to eco-friendly choices make a dent in the health of our environment?

"Anything each of us can do to shrink this country's size 11 carbon foot print, compared to most of the world's size 5, would help," she writes.
   
Estimates say that more than 2.5 million weddings take place every year in the United States at a whopping cost of $72 billion. And while people used to worry about drunken guests or lost invitations, today's couples have more serious concerns.

"Instead they fret over spending thousands of dollars on flowers that will wilt away," says Navarro, "a gown that will never be worn again, and on party gifts that will go straight into the trash."

It isn't hard to tailor a wedding to match one's environmental concerns, while at the same time making the occasion more meaningful for everyone involved. When planning the menu, for instance, Navarro says consider this fact.

"Believe it or not, the livestock business, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined."

The food "should be local, seasonal, and not grown with dangerous pesticides (and it should never have said 'moo.')"

  Other general "green" guidelines include:

  * minimize travel distances for all guests

  * sending e-vites instead of paper to announce the big day

  * the bride's dress should have a second or third life

  * flowers should not be grown by exploited workers

  * party favors should be more useful than plastic trinkets

"Green Wedding" is loaded with clever, eco-friendly ideas to take the occasion into a realm distinctly your own.

"No one need know that the colorful shawls wrapped over the backs of the chairs to keep guests warm were made of recycled plastic-bottles -- unless you want them to," she writes.

Many of the couples highlighted in the book opted for farm venues or botanical gardens instead of the traditional church setting. One couple rented a camp site in California's San Gabriel Mountains that involved a 4-mile hike to the cabins. Uphill. A pack of mule trains carried food and luggage for the guests.

There are no absolutes when it comes to planning a green wedding. It can be all green, light green or just relatively green, says Navarro.

The bottom line is to ward off over-consumption at the event and follow the three R's of eco-friendly thinking -- reduce, reuse, recycle.

"Green Wedding," subtitled "Planning Your Eco-Friendly Celebration," is published by Stewart, Tabori and Chang.

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