Green is the new white.

When opting for earth-friendly and organic celebrations – also known as green weddings – make a statement about your interests and values.

Once you start looking for ways to lessen your environmental impact, you’ll be surprised how many opportunities there are and how many people – including your celebrant, your suppliers, family and friends – will step up and support you in doing their little bit to make a difference.

As wedding plans have changed so much in recent times, many of our couples have taken that time to rethink and redesign their event to align with their ethics. Zero waste doesn’t mean mud, mulch and drop toilets, but it can mean making conscious choices for a magical environment, while at the same time decreasing land fill and waste.

Many couples are already choosing to live sustainably, so it is logical that the theme continues to the most important day of their lives. After all a wedding is about the future – and what better time to think about the future of the planet?

There are over 100,000* wedding in Australia every year, so if each couple spreads the eco-friendly message by celebrating a love of the planet, it may encourage others to do the same.

Seven tips for a more sustainable wedding

1. Rent, recycle or go vintage

For your wedding attire, there are borrowed vintage numbers, such as Princess Eugenie’s dress, which was on loan from the Queen, to Stella McCartney’s eco-friendly pieces and a lot of options in between using natural and organic fabrics. Choose brands that are transparent about their supply chain, avoid air miles and buy local to show support for Australian design.  

Don’t trash the frock, if you own it, pass it on to a friend, keep it for the next generation or donate to a charity.

2. Minimise travel

Less is more when it comes to travel; less carbon dioxide is emitted if guests travel by train or bus – consider bikes, horses and an electric-car pool.

3. Share the food

More is less when it comes to food, so consider going family-style with platters to avoid waste, send guests home with the leftovers or drop them to a homeless shelter. Skip the plastic cake-decorations in favour of edible flowers and honour the source with organic, free range and Fair Trade ingredients.

4. Ask for sustainable gifts

Give back by planting more trees: ask guests to donate a tree, adopt a native species, save an endangered animal or adopt a koala in your name, as a worthwhile alternative to the toaster-and-kettle clutter of gifts that are often neither needed nor wanted.

5. Be creative with eco-friendly décor

Once you start down the bio-degradable path, think of confetti alternatives. Hole-punch local greenery and flowers to create organic confetti. When it comes to floral arrangements, choose flowers grown without pesticides and ensure the arrangements can be repurposed. Extend their lives by having the florals used at the wedding venue taken to the reception, then afterwards broken up into bunches for nursing homes or hospitals. Parks are an economical alternative to buying flowers as they have ready-made colourful backdrops with all the seasonal flowers maintained at their peak.

At your reception venue, think about doing as one of our couples did; instead of a place-card denoting the seating arrangements, each guest’s name was painted on a pebble and placed at his or her seat. Every table had soy candles in an eclectic selection of glass jars; there was everything from Moccona coffee containers to pickle jars. The couple had put out the word to friends and family to collect the glass containers, all of which could be recycled at the end of the reception.

6. Opt for eco-friendly wedding invitations

Make the wedding invitation as green as possible: electronic can be fun without looking like an office memo. Consider creating a wedding-invitation video. If you do go for paper, try biodegradable seed-paper that, once planted, turns into compost and hopefully, if your guests have green thumbs, a plant.

One of our couples recently had their wedding in their local parkland that was very special to them, as so much of their lock-down dating was spent there. The reception was at a local club with a garden overlooking the sea .Both venues were within walking distance of most of the guests, both were meaningful to our couple, and made the most of the local amenities and produce.

7. Take a low-impact honeymoon

Carry the green-theme through to the sustainable honeymoon: consider hiking, biking, volunteering or choose an eco-tourism resort.

Make your wedding sustainable and memorable for all the right reasons

Guests often won’t remember the decorations or the food in years to come, but memorable moments that are thoughtful and creative with the added ethical and environmental bonus.

Talk to us about more sustainable and environmentally friendly ideas to make your day a great one for yourselves...and the planet.

• Australian Bureau of Statistics