Swedish summer wedding

We're so excited to welcome Johan Karlberg & Carey Mann who are getting married in Sweden this summer. Carey is going to keep us up to date with all their wedding plans as the months fly by towards their wedding “ute på landet” (out in the country) in July.

Wedding date: 10th July, 2010

Wedding venue and location: We are getting married at my Fiance’s parents' summer home in Kisa, Sweden. We are also having a reception party in London the week after our main wedding which is taking place in an ecology centre in Bow, London.

How many guests are coming to your wedding and where from? We have 70 guests coming to our Swedish wedding. Half of the guests are Swedish and traveling from different parts of Sweden. The rest of the guests are traveling from London, Belgium, France and one guest from Africa (we are paying to carbon offset all the flights).

Do you have a budget and do you think you'll be able to stick to it? We didn’t really have a budget but the costs so far are about £7,000 for the Swedish wedding and another £3,000 for the London reception.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Naturally authentic bride

Our lovely Abbie Wedding Dress looks so gorgeous on Charlie, and we couldn't resist showing you all how beautiful bride and dress are!

Charlie was married in Durham in October and has cleverly teamed the 100% organic cotton satin dress, which also has a lining in handloomed 100% organic cotton, with a sweet little fluffly shrug to keep the chill at bay in church. The gold 100% handloomed wild peace silk sash, which comes with the dress, ties the whole ensemble together beautifully.

Doesn't she look happy on the arm of her father on the way into the church for her wedding ceremony! We wish Charlie and her new husband a long and happy life together.

You can buy the Abbie Wedding Dress by Tammam, which is exclusive to Green Union, and find more fairly traded organic cotton and silk wedding dresses and wedding dress fabrics in our Eco Chic Boutique.

Or if you prefer to find a dress designer who will design and hand make a unique dress especially for you, we have the best of them listed in our Wedding Directory!

Posted in Green Wedding Dresses & Gowns , Natural Nuptials

Vintage wedding in Wales

Vicky and Ads got married on 15th August 2009. They threw a vintage 1920s style wedding at Treowen House, Monmouthshire. Thanks to Rosie Parsons photos, we can see what a brilliant time they had!

Vicky is a hopeless collector of vintage china, wedding stylist and lover of all things 1920's, so it was a given that the wedding had to be decorated with her lovely china and locally grown seasonal flowers. The bride wore an original 1920's flapper dress and she made her own jewellery from recycled vintage jewels.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials , Photographers

Gorgeous engaged couple?

Very short notice!

Condé Nast BRIDES magazine is looking for a gorgeous engaged couple for a fun, cool fashion shoot in a central London studio this Friday 20th.

Only needed for 4 hours and I guarantee it will be a really fun day with great pictures for you to keep.

Please email fiona.kerr@condenast.co.uk, or phone her on 0207 152 3327 for more information.

Plese let them know that you came through GreenUnion.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , News , Press

Introducing Lisa & Scott

We're delighted to welcome Lisa and Scott from Dorset who are cleverly managing to get married in both Dorset and Wiltshire on the same day next year! They've seen a few weddings in their time as wedding photographers, so we're really looking forward to finding out how the professionals throw a green wedding. Read on to find out what Lisa told us about their wedding plans so far.

Names? Lisa & Scott

Wedding date? 13th June 2010

Wedding venue and location?
Ceremony: Old Wardour Castle, Wardour Castle, Near Tisbury, Salisbury, SP3 6RR (an English Heritage site)
Reception: The Langton Arms, Tarrant Monkton, Nr Blandford, Dorset, DT11 8RX

How many guests are coming to your wedding and where from? 50 wedding guests at the ceremony, and 60 guests at the wedding reception

Do you have a budget and do you think you'll be able to stick to it? Yes our wedding budget is £7000 and we are planning to stick to it!

Why is it important to you to throw an eco-wedding? What inspired you? We have always wanted to keep our wedding relaxed and simple and planning an eco-wedding really lends itself to this ethos. We also love all things vintage and so this was an inspiration for us and allowed us to hunt around vintage shops with a clear conscience, which is a lot of fun!

Please can you tell us a little about the eco-elements of your wedding? Our wedding plans started with my dress, which I bought many months ago now from Oxfam Bridal Suite. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a designer wedding dress by Sassi Holford and can’t wait to wear it! It is amazing what you can pick up in second hand shops and most of the Oxfam collection has not been worn before, so you can really find a bargain. Not to mention make use of a beautiful dress, which could otherwise go to waste.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Fabulous farm wedding

When Lisa Dawn, a West Country photographer sent in these photos of the recent wedding she shot in Somerset in England, we just had to post them here. The photography is great and, of course, Huntstile Organic Farm where the wedding was held this summer, is one of our favourite wedding venues.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , Photographers , Venues

We wish Kerry & Mark a happy day!

American couple Kerry and Mark tie the knot on Monday and we'll be thinking of them on this very special day of days. With guests coming to their green wedding from all over the US, Bermuda and even the UK (hope they've factored in some carbon offsets ...) it sounds as though they have already started celebrating and the party's likely to go on for a week!

Everyone here at GUHQ wish them both so much happiness in their future years together.

You can read more about Kerry and Mark's journey towards their big day in Kerry's regular blogs.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Low Impact Wedding Series - Stationary

We made our own wedding invitations and other stationary.

My lovely groom did all the water colors and a lot of the layout. I did a lot of the wording for the invitations and some graphic design. We used PhotoShop to create the images and wording and a desk top printer for the printing. They were one of the things we got the most compliments on.

We used Genesis™ Recycled Stationery in Milkweed 8.5 x 11 80# cover and we ordered the paper from Treecycle. I recommend paper that is at least 80# . That is the minimum thickness the USPS will take for postcards. Be careful, they also have a minimum size.

We tried not to use too much paper so the invitation had a printed map of the venue with info on the back and and the RSVP's and Rehearsal Dinner invites were postcards which helped cut down on the amount of money we spent on stamps.

The wedding programme was made by folding an 8.5 x 11 page in half length-wise and it looked really slick although I do have to admit some of the font was a bit little small. We printed a quiz on the back of the programme which gave people something to talk about before the wedding started and we had a friend who's got a good sense of humor stand up during the toasts and give the answers.

Stationary Budget:
$73.90 Stamps (100 Invitation, 150 Postcard, 80 Thank You)
$84.00 Ink ($12 per color cartrige)
$26.99 Card Stock (500 pages of #80 paper)
$30.17 Envelopes (250 matching card envelopes)

Total = $211.06

Kindly compiled by Foy Spicer.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials

Vicky & Ads get married!

Our lovely Charity Bride, Vicky, and her beloved, Ads, get married this weekend at Treowan in Monmothshire and we wish them all the luck in the world. We're thinking positive thoughts about the weather but know it won't matter a bit if it rains because of the strength of their relationship and the energy the couple and all their friends are putting into their very special weekend.

Vicky wrote to us a week ago to tell us all: "we'll be buzzing around on the Friday setting up and the wedding's on the Saturday. We're having a roaring twenties wedding and I won't have any bells on my toes (in true green wedding fashion) that's for sure! But I have locally sourced flowers from a friend's garden less than a mile away, and locally sourced food.....second hand rings, carbon offset honeymoon...charity shop sourced decorations...hand made jewellery and head pieces ... I'm laughing as I'm writing this, he he!"

Have a fabulous day Vicky & Ads!

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Dancing down the aisle ...

How cool is this, you just have to watch this video!

Not only will it brighten up your morning to see these everyday people celebrating with their hearts and souls, but it brings home the thought that love and marriage should always be good, happy and fun.

Don't hold back, take a leaf out of Jill and Kevin's book and make sure your wedding day truly reflects and celebrates you as a couple.

Enjoy!

Posted in Green Wedding Inspiration , Natural Nuptials

Low Impact Wedding Series - The Decorations

We had such a beautiful location for the wedding we felt that it didn’t need much decoration. My one recommendation to others is to start with a beautiful place. It will be so much less work in the long run.

Linen Rentals: For the reception we were in a very beautiful church, but the community room was very plain. We weren't really sure if we were going to be able to use it because it was set to be completed at the beginning of June and they were behind. They actually opened the room one week before our wedding, so that's when I really started to consider how to decorate the hall. The quickest fix was to rent white table cloths from a local rental company for $15 each for an 8 person round table. We also paid $16 each for several long table cloths for the gift table, family pictures and guest book table.
Total rented linens $124.12

Cloth Napkins: I insisted that we have no disposables used at our wedding. So when it came to napkins I looked into renting cloth ones and discovered they were about $0.40 a piece to rent. So instead I bought many, many vintage cloth napkins in lots off eBay for less than $0.40 a piece and ended up with enough for one per guest so there was one at every place setting. It added a lot to the room and people sat at places because they wanted a certain napkin. I am pretty sure people took them home too as I was missing about 20 at the end of the day!

With the rest I plan on making them into a quilt at some point, but even missing 20 I have more than enough for that project.

Misc: In a previous post I mentioned the floral center pieces I made using my mom’s antiques and flowers from her garden. I also made flower arrangements for the guest book table, bathrooms and the family wedding portraits table.

Total cost - $164.12

For more information and ideas on how to decorate your wedding reception venue go to our advice pages, or to hire a stylist for your wedding go to our Green Wedding Directory.

Posted in Green Wedding Decorations & Details , Natural Nuptials

Low Impact Wedding Series - Ceremony

In the beginning we talked about having a sunrise wedding. Doesn't that sound so auspicious and romantic? But then we thought about the details - all the guests would have to arrive in the dark and you'd have to get dressed and ready at four in the morning!

So instead, we had a morning wedding ceremony starting at 9:00 am. The wedding breakfast followed at about 10:30 AM and lasted until about 1:30 pm. The real party for the wedding was the rehearsal dinner and we invited all the wedding guests to a BBQ at the ceremony location the night before.

Ceremony Area - The ceremony was held with the shelter as a back drop. It worked out perfectly because the front had a peek that served as a beautiful frame for the alter.

Ceremony Music - Again we’re thinking eco friendly, so canned music with speakers was out. We have a friend who plays the cello and that just seemed perfect. He agreed and we asked that he pick the procession and recession. He actually composed the music and gave it to us a wedding present. The walk in was “Look, Isn’t She Pretty” and the walk out was “Okay, We’re Done, You Can Go Now”. I left the titles out of the program, but they make me smile. Our cellist friend was gratis.

Ceremony Officiant - The groom’s family is Catholic and mine is, well... a little bit of this and that. I have never been baptized and had no intention of joining the Catholic church so we were extremely lucky.

It was really important to the groom that Father Terry do the ceremony and Father Terry is one of the most open hearted and open minded priests I have met. He agreed to marry us “in the Bride’s place of worship” which I decided was to be outside and he did a wonderful job. He basically read the ceremony we came up with and we gave $100 to the church as his payment. Search for officiants and celebrants in our wedding directory.

Total Cost = $100

You can get more ideas on how to conduct your wedding ceremony and the legalities of getting married in the UK by going to our advice pages.

Posted in Green Wedding Celebrants & Blessings , Natural Nuptials

Getting married soon?

Are you getting married within the next 4 weeks?

If so, Laura would like to talk to you about a magazine feature in the Sunday Telegraph Stella magazine about British weddings. They are looking for a couple who are planning an eco wedding and would be happy to have a Sunday Telegraph photographer capture an image of their day.

Please get in touch with laura@talktothepress.com and please tell her that you heard about this from us here at GreenUnion.

You will need to be willing to have photos of your big day published in the Sunday Telegraph magazine and be available for a quick phone interview too.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , Press

Sparkly Things: More on wedding jewelry

There are oh so many jewelry options to consider, and that can be more than a little overwhelming.

Starting with the engagement ring - I knew I did not want a diamond, and I ideally wanted an entirely already-in-existence, i.e. not brand new, ring. Mark was extremely fortunate that his Dad had been holding onto a Star Ruby gold ring that his Grandfather had passed down - and Star Rubies are purple, my favorite color! We spent some time looking into the option - using the gold (way more than I would need in a ring, since it was a man’s ring) to make our wedding bands, resetting the Ruby in an entirely new setting or making a necklace instead of a ring out of the stone.

It took some convincing to get what we wanted. The jeweler insisted on showing us all the brand new settings they had before pulling out a box of “vintage” settings, essentially waiting to be recycled. We found the perfect setting for the stone, and avoided the environmental costs associated with refining the metals for a new ring in the end. Overcoming the generalizations that you won’t be happy without a diamond, and definitely won’t enjoy having a “previously used” ring can be rough…

For my wedding jewelry I faced the same dilemma, in that I know I want certain things, but also know I want to stick to my low impact wedding resolutions. Borrowing earrings and a necklace from my sister might be the answer, though I won’t have them after the wedding, which for purely sentimental reasons is a factor.

Our wedding rings are the next jewelry item to address. We like the idea of having matching bands, but the chances of finding ones we like that match are slim in the vintage ring market. We’ve also pondered going the artisan route and having them made for us by a local jeweler, but face the same metal costs there. Buying new through a conventional jeweler would be the most cost effective option it seems (surprisingly!), but despite our budget we’ll probably choose not to go that route given the true costs of traditionally mined and processed metals. Here’s hoping we run into perfect, similar, previously used wedding bands at a local vintage jewelry shop!

Posted by Kerry - Blogger Bride

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Blissful bride

[source: People]

What an inspiration! Barack and Michelle Obama, who were married in 1992, are great role models for couples everywhere. Not only do they appear to have had the chicest wedding, but they have mutual respect and genuine affection for each other which is abundantly clear in this relaxed wedding portrait which sits on the Obamas’ living room mantel.

If you're planning your wedding, don't let the main reason for your marriage get lost. Of course it's lovely to have perfect wedding plans, beautiful invitations, a gorgeous venue, all your guests dressed to the nines, generous wedding gifts, the bridal gown of your dreams, a slap up wedding breakfast, horse and carriage, bridesmaids and a wonderful honeymoon. But the most important thing of all is your love and respect for one another, nothing else matters...

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials

It's booked!!

After much umm-ing and ahh-ing, a dinner tasting and a good look around, (actually twice!) we have finally booked our wedding venue! We have gone for something a little different for the day, well actually two days, this decision was reached for a number of reasons some of them eco centered.

Weddings have a tendency of getting big, growing in fact right before your eyes, becoming all consuming, but if you're concerned by the basic waste, money and miles this will effect, have you considered doing a two date affair?

Basically we are having a very small ceremony and dinner, it looks like 14 of us on a Wednesday, and then a cheap and cheerful party the following Saturday, 'two do’s' you say, surely that can’t be very eco, that’s just extravagance no? Well no, we hope.

This has two main outcomes for us. Intimacy and affordability. But will also, I hope, keep it eco centered.

So the ceremony, with our very nearest and dearest family and friends, parents, best man, etc. means that afterwards, for the wedding breakfast, we can eat at one table, enjoy really good local food in a beautiful private dining room, the same room in which we will earlier have been married, and we can all stay over in the same place keeping travel miles low. Intimate, relaxed and personal. One room to decorate, 14 mouths to feed, no going to or fro!

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials , Venues

Low Impact Wedding Series - Flowers

Because I am a florist my flowers were very important to me and, in keeping with a Green wedding I didn’t want any imported chemically laden flowers. So I decided to use flowers and foliage from my mother and mother in-law’s gardens. I also picked many of the flowers out of obliging road side ditches. Well really my mother and aunt did most of the picking.

Bridal Bouquet: I picked the flowers for my bouquet and the flower shop I worked for put them together. My grandmother’s name was Fern so I made sure lots of ferns were in my bouquet. There were also purple clematis, white floribunda roses, a weed I've heard called pancake weed and a type of purple wild campanula. My florist friends did add green hydrangea that was probably imported, but I didn't ask and I knew they created the bouquet for me and that made it special.

Bridesmaids Bouquets: I made my bridesmaids' bouquets and the groom’s buttonhole the morning before the wedding. Each bridesmaid's bouquet was a little different. My sister, the forester, had green maple seedheads in hers,the friend I played in the forest with as a kid, had wild ginger and my tattooed friend had zebra grass for her wild side.

Buttonholes: I have a very strong rule that if you don’t have a lapel you don’t get a boutonnière. So the only guy who got a flower was the groom. His was several white floribunda rose blossoms. I didn’t have flowers for our parents or anyone else.

Table Centres: I made all the center pieces for the reception. I used antique vases and bowls from my mother's china cabinet. Half the tables had a vintage vase with an arrangement of mixed flowers and half had three glass vases each with one kind of foliage. But with hindsight I don’t recommend doing your own flowers. It took about three hours right before the rehearsal dinner started for me to get them all put together. Luckily there was a very nice janitor at the hall who helped me clean up or I would have been late!

The total cost of the flowers was $00.00

Get more flower inspiration in our blog pages.

Posted in Green Wedding Flowers , Natural Nuptials

Low Impact Wedding Series - What to wear?

It was important to me that only natural fibers were used in the wedding party's clothing. This turned into a huge hassle. Eventually I revoked that rule. Between the mothers having difficulty and my bridesmaids complaining I told them to pick something they wanted to wear and just not tell me what it was made from.

WEDDING DRESS: I knew I wanted a really simple, not very formal wedding dress since the wedding was going to be outside in the morning. It also had to have straps. I work outside and no matter how much sunscreen I put on I was going to have a tank top tan line. I spent a lot of time searching eBay. I bought 5 different wedding dresses and really loved two of them. The one I wore for the wedding was 100% silk, it fit perfectly and didn't need a stitch of alteration. I resold the dresses I didn't want on eBay and I actually turned a profit. The cost for my dress was $88 including shipping.

Posted in Green Wedding Dresses & Gowns , Grooms , Natural Nuptials , Shoes & Accessories

This week’s major wedding accomplishment ...

Our invitations went out this week! Exciting!

After a few mishaps, the most frustrating of which included seriously crooked printing, they are in the mail.

After researching recycled paper options, because we were planning to letterpress our save the dates and invitations ourselves, I found the perfect invitations on a clearance rack at a paper goods store—on super sale because it was an opened package. So we bought the “almost used” invitations, and after letterpressing our save the dates ourselves (time consuming!), decided to print them on our regular printer. Well. Flexibility came into play again, because after too many tries, they were still not perfectly straight. It was one of those wedding planning experiences where it’s easy to get incredibly frustrated because It’s Not Working Out the Way I Planned.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials , Stationery & Invitations

Are you throwing a Scottish green wedding?

Scottish Television's programme The Hour is looking for couples planning an eco wedding in Scotland this year.

The programme is a week nightly lifestyle magazine show presented by Stephen Jardine which transmits between 5 and 6 pm. They cover all aspects of modern living from Fashion, Health and Music to Cooking, Money and Films.

If you're interested in being filmed for an item about ethical weddings in the show and telling them all about your own green wedding plans, then get in touch with Abi Judge, the producer of the programme, at alison.kay@stv.tv or call her on 0141 300 3207.

Do tell her you heard about the programme from GreenUnion.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , News , Press

Venue Down, Next Up: The Menu

We have been increasingly aware of the connections between our food systems and sustainability, and wanted to make sure our wedding menu wasn’t a complete divergence from our general efforts to consume sustainable foods. One of the reasons we moved to Oregon was the abundance of local food options, and we want to make sure to reflect that in the wedding meals. For us, we have two meals to think about—the day prior to the wedding we’ll have a “Welcome to Town” picnic in a local park, including lunch, and then dinner at the reception on our wedding day.

We are planning to do the cooking for the picnic (with the help of our best friends, wedding party members, who will come to town a few days early to help). This will give us complete control over the menu and ingredients for one of the two meals. We’re also going to be swimming in veggies by the wedding weekend—we have a small community garden spot we’ve planted full of vegetables (and a few strawberries), and belong to a CSA which provides us with a week’s worth of fresh produce. Most likely we’ll do a vegetarian lasagna meal for the picnic, which will be easy to prepare in advance, and can accommodate whatever vegetables we end up with from the CSA.

For the day of the wedding, our venue will be catering the dinner, and they sent us a 25-page document full of food options. Our next task is to narrow the dinner down—at this point we are planning to have a vegetarian and a meat option (probably seafood since we are coastal, but that’s still up in the air). Of course, the budget comes into play here too. We had originally wanted, in lieu of a cake, to have ice cream and a “berry bar” filled with local berries. While there are berries of every sort available here in the summer, the cost of getting enough for 75 people put that idea to rest.

Alcohol is easy to get locally, since the venue has a brewery and winery on site! We decided to provide beer and wine for our reception, and have other drinks available on a pay-as-you-drink basis. This will keep our costs down a bit and focus our guests on the local options.

Now, back to the endless task of trying to finalize the guest list!

Posted by Kerry - Blogger Bride

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Caterers, Food & Drink , Natural Nuptials

Low Impact Wedding Series - The Venue

Foy spicer continues the account of her Low Impact Wedding - here she talks about the couples' choice of venue, hightlighting pros and cons...

CEREMONY: We both wanted an outdoor wedding ceremony and reception. We considered a lot of places for the ceremony, but accessibility was important because we've both got lots of cute little old ladies in our families. After a little investigating we decided on a local state park that had this beautiful shelter built by the PWA in the 1940's of local quarried rock. The price was right being just $25 per day. We rented the shelter for the night before as well and BBQ'd there for the rehearsal dinner.

The only draw back was the not so nice bathrooms. We own a couple of wooden TV tray like folding tables. I put one in each bathroom with a basket of assorted hand sanitizer, lotion, tissues, mints, Tylenol and safety pins. After the ceremony the baskets were brought to the reception venue's bathrooms.

I should also mention we didn't really have a rain plan. The wedding was going to happen outside come rain or shine without a tent! We're really lucky it didn't rain.

We rented chairs for the audience. It was $110 for 100 chairs to be delivered and picked up. However, we had to put out the chairs and return them to their racks. Luckily we had some obliging friends and family who took care of this.

RECEPTION: We needed a location that would allow us to bring in our own food. We wanted to use local or organic food as much as possible and many catering services charge outrageous prices to alter the menus enough to accommodate a green wedding. Since we weren't having the wedding at a church, why not the reception? My groom's church had just built a new community room. In fact for a while we worried it wouldn't be done in time for the wedding, but they did manage to get it put together just seven days before the wedding. The cost of rental was $75 for four hours and $25 for use the kitchen.

Total in site rentals = $235

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , Venues

Planning: Where to Begin?

One question that is certain to come up pretty early on in the wedding planning process is “where do I start?”. Whether you are planning a green wedding or not, the details all seem to hinge on each other - deciding on a venue leads to caterer discussions and then photographers and so on. For us, we decided that the ultimate must-haves in a wedding site were an outdoor venue, and a place that would accommodate our eco-wedding.

Deciding on a venue was a month long process of weighing our options and desires. We initially wanted a wedding site that was on the commuter train line, so everyone traveling into town could easily spend the weekend here without a car. This is not the norm for U.S. travel, and even in a public transportation mecca like Portland, ended up not being feasible for almost all of the wedding venues within our price range.

So, early on, we learned another very important lesson in green wedding planning: be flexible.

We have find an amazing venue, Edgefield McMenamins, and though it’s not on the train line, it will allow for everyone who attends to stay in the adjoining hotel (minimizing the driving around). They have local food and alcohol options, and most importantly we can have the wedding outside.

The choice of a venue has implications for many of the eco-aspects of a wedding, so be sure to ask questions if you are planning a green wedding. Where do they get their food? (This may be less of an issue in the UK, but here in Oregon while we have local food options, you have to seek them out, and they aren’t necessarily the norm.) What types of transportation are available to get to the venue? Do they recycle? Use recycled paper products (or better yet, not use paper products)? While it’s easy to get overwhelmed, for us it was important to remember what our priorities were and be flexible.

Posted by Kerry - Blogger Bride

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials , Venues , Wedding Planning

The ring, the ring my kingdom for a ring!!

Probably the hardest jewellery purchase I think I’ll ever make, mostly because I will wear it every day for the rest of my life… no pressure then.

I had always thought I would design my own engagement ring, for which I would like to use ethically sourced stones, or vintage gems or maybe even making my ring from parts of an old ring. But what to do?

Well I knew I’d found a great jeweller in David Hill of Parchment in Winchester. Not only was he able to work with my designs (my first visit was for 3 hours with a sketch book full of notes) but he was also great at explaining why he ethically sources his stones, and how he knows for sure where they are from. His caring knowledgeable approach was very reassuring.

Although I didn’t go for incorporating the vintage stones I had wanted originally, I feel now I made the right choice, knowing that my ring has been crafted locally, handmade by a local craftsman who I have met and who has helped me make my ring a reality. It's something I’m very happy with, et vola!

Posted by Esther - Blogger Bride

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Jewellery , Natural Nuptials

Introducing Kerry & Mark

Warm welcome to Kerry from Oregon, in the USA, who's agreed to fill us in on her and H2B Mark's green wedding plans from across the 'pond'. We'll be following Kerry's blogs till her wedding in September.

Names? Kerry and Mark

Wedding date? September 7, 2009 (wow, only 4 months to go!)

Wedding Venue and location? Edgefield McMenamins, Troutdale, (outside Portland, Oregon)

How many guests are coming to your wedding and where from? We will have 75 guests, coming from all over the United States, and as far away as Bermuda and the U.K. We both grew up in the Eastern U.S. and have friends and family there, and then lived in California until last summer, which means many of our guests are traveling to our wedding. Having a small wedding was important to us, but the guest list has been the hardest part of the planning for sure!

Do you have a budget and do you think you'll be able to stick to it? Initially we had hoped to be able to pull off a 'green' wedding for $5,000 (US); pretty quickly we realized $7,000 (US) was more realistic and are aiming to stay right around there. So far we are on track with our budget, and the economy definitely inspires us to be ultra-conscious of the choices we make.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Low Impact Wedding Series - Introduction

Foy Spicer, a florist in the US, and her husband Jeff Diesburg threw a low impact wedding in 2006 and they have generously agreed to share their experience with us over the next few weeks. Over to you Foy...

"It is actually possible to have an affordable, fun, green wedding. We consider ourselves lucky to have the wedding that we had, but I've noticed that a lot of people are having trouble comprehending how to have a green wedding on a budget of $5000, so I made sure to keep track of how we spent our money.

Sure, there were some things missing from our wedding - some were from personal preference (no meat at the brunch) and some were because of financial reasons. But, because we made sure to prioritize, those things that some people might say are "missing," were not really missed by us at all.

My parents gave us a gift of $5,000 and that's about what we spent. Which includes everything except for a lot of time and labor we and our lovely friends and family put in. If I did not list it, we probably did not have it.

Here's the cut and dry version of our wedding budget the total cost of which was $4515.00:

Posted in Green Wedding Inspiration , Natural Nuptials

Introducing Esther & Drew

Congratulations to Esther and Drew who got engaged a couple of weeks ago! Esther wrote to tell us how the committment to get married has got her into a flat spin. She said "I'm actually probably having the very normal first couple of weeks of sheer google mania trying to find a venue so we can set a date and we are trying to go for something eco orientated with good local food, skills swapping with people to keep costs down ie: I make a cake stand for her wedding, she makes the cake for mine etc, trying to keep the miles and importantly the cost down!! So maybe the blogging world could help with ideas!"

Names? Esther and Drew

Wedding date? Sometime in June 2010

Wedding Venue and location? Were pretty sure it will be in Hampshire were we live, for a few good reasons including wanting to shop local and reducing transport miles. Venue-wise we're still up in the air a bit, but it looks like were getting closer to an answer. One more to see on Monday and hopefully we can decide on a plan. (I'm normally quite decisive but this has really got me in a twist!! So many conflicting factors to think about.. )

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

What have I done......or more importantly haven't......

Lots and lots, I think it's now dawning on me that I've focused heavily on the elements of the planning that I'm comfortable with and the other bits....

Well......er....who knows....you see I'm organising the lot and I'm no wedding planner but why should that stop me.........to give you an indication of what I mean, I just this minute asked my mother (who's staying with Ads and I) she's chirruping away in my ear about fascinators (I digress). I ask her what I haven't organised as I kind of drew a blank as soon as I started writing (a cushioning from wedding induced anxiety, a buffer for my poor mind) half expecting her to say....

I don't know what she was going to say actually but I wasn't expecting her answer to be so full bodied. She rattled off invitations, ordering tables, table cloths, cutlery, flowers (friends are growing most of them but do I know what the displays will be....no, bouquets...nope) and then I tuned her out to the sound of the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack.

Who cares!!!!

We'll sort it, but right now the hat block I've purchased is calling and I'm creating fascinators and cloche hats for the guests from all sorts of loveliness and vintage trimmings! It'll all happen.....why stress I say. There's plenty of tables in the world, invites....well I read somewhere they're meant to go out 3 months before (got ages).......

Time to pull me finger out me thinks!!!!!

Posted by Vicky - Blogger Bride

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Charity bride in the news

Our blogger bride Vicky's got so hooked on collecting vintage china from charity shops for her very ethical wedding in August, that she's hit the news in a bid to persuade other charity shoppers to sign up for Gift Aid to benefit the shops they buy in.

St Peter's Hospice shop in Chipping Sodbury says that Gift Aid scheme could potentially raise an extra £250,000 for the charity in its first year.

The initiative will enable the shops to raise an extra 28p on every £1 taken at the tills at no extra cost to customers and Julie Trinder, manager of both shops in Chipping Sodbury, said: "Our shops have been promoting the Gift Aid scheme for the past two weeks and so far over 3,000 people have signed up across the region.

Did you know that it costs £5.3 million every year to provide our specialist palliative care? By signing up to the Gift Aid scheme in St Peter's Hospice shops you could help them to raise much needed funds that go directly towards patient care.

Read the whole story in the Gazette.

Image from the Gazette shows shop manager Julie Trinder with Vicky. Vicky will be blogging here about her wedding plans in the forthcoming months.

Posted in Green Wedding Charities , Natural Nuptials , News

Introducing Vicky & Ads

When Vicky contacted me about selling her soy wax vintage teacup candles in our eco chic wedding boutique, she told me of her plans for her own charitable dream wedding this year. Happily she's agreed to fill us in and keep us posted on the run up to her very stylish green wedding day.

Names: Vicky & Ads

Wedding date: 15th August 2009 (not long!)

Wedding venue and location: Treowen in Monmouthshire. A big old Jacobean manor house that can be hired for days or weeks at a time. We’ve hired it for 4 days so we can make a weekend of it as my Birthday is the following day. The house can accommodate 35 people and a sizeable group are camping in the grounds. The ceremony and reception are all taking place there and we’re responsible for organising everything from the food, booze, entertainments and décor.

How many guests are coming to your wedding and where from? 60 to the reception and a further 60 for the evening. Ads and I live in Bristol and my family live in Wales, however the majority of guests aren’t local. So whilst my family are not traveling far, his family live in Surrey so have a reasonable distance to travel and we’re encouraging them to travel in convoy in minibuses (move over Gavin and Stacey). Family and wedding party are staying in the house, and then the vast majority are camping out in the 300 odd acres.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Inspiration , Natural Nuptials

Did you watch it?

If you watched Episode 7 of Its Not Easy Being Green last night you probably won't have heard anything you haven't already heard before but two things stood out for me:

The couple only had £5000 to spend and managed to enjoy a fabulous day dispelling the popular notion that you can only have a green wedding if you've got plenty of money in the pot.

The bride's comment at how surprised she was that she hadn't had to compromise on her dream of the perfect day to ensure that her wedding was a green one.

Go green weddings!

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , News

Its Not Easy Being Green

Don't miss Its Not Easy Being Green tonight on BBC2 where Toby Sawday meets a young bride at a wedding fair and sets about trying to green-up her wedding and her honeymoon.

We worked hard with the BBC to give them information and advice during the planning of the feature, and our partner Wedding Tree Favours is featured on the programme, so we're excited to see how it panned out.

Could be fun and you may get a few tips too!
Happy viewing - BBC2 8pm tonight.

You can find more stories of real green weddings here.

Posted in Green Wedding Events , Natural Nuptials

Return to Don't Tell the Bride

DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MAY 2009

Are you dreaming of the perfect day? Is ‘the green wedding’ your favourite topic of conversation? Do you have hundreds of ideas but not hundreds of pounds? Do you think your man can pull off the ultimate wedding of your dreams?

If so then 'Don't Tell the Bride' is looking for a unique couple and has £12k to make your big day.

EMAIL: weddings@renegadepictures.co.uk
Or call: 020 7479 4210

Posted in Green Wedding Giveaways , Natural Nuptials , News

French leave

We've had a busy few days here at GreenUnion HQ. It seems the French are really curious about the growing trend for green and naturalistic weddings so we've been entertaining a TV crew from France 5 public TV! They have sent a group of young couples all over Europe to see what is happening out there and the programme Les Report-Terre will begin broadcasting in October.

Devon and Cornwall has a huge number of sustainable businesses offering their services to couples who want to throw a natural celebration, so we gathered together a group of brilliant people to tell Pauline and Guillaume of Les Report-Terre how it works.

We had Rosie at GreenUnion, of course, to give an overview and then we took them to Coombe Farm Woodlands to look at an eco friendly, organically run venue. They talked to Sally of Manic Organic about her own green wedding and her vegetarian catering business. We had two celebrants for them to interview - Alison Orchard from Crediton in Devon who is a member of the British Humanist Association, and Jackie Brown from Truro in Cornwall who conducts spiritual ceremonies for anyone whether you are just an agnostic or a full fledged pagan. Jackie is getting married soon too and wanted to tell Les Report-Terre why she will be thowing an eco friendly wedding.

We decorated the barn at Coombe Farm with gorgeous silk heart pendant bunting made out of vintage sari fabrics by the Big Beautiful Bunting Co. We also used seasonal flowers and foliage - hydrangeas, fennel heads, blackberries and apple boughs to show how it can be done with style and colour.

Sadly all the wonderful caterers such as Dartmoor Kitchen, in Devon that we could have talked to were so busy we couldn't have any time with them, so instead we suggested they film a herd of Red Devon beef cows at Coombe Farm to prove that the food can be locally sourced right on the doorstep - it went down a treat!

We talked about jewellery and April Doubleday's ethical wedding rings were a fantastic example of how you can source your gold and diamonds without conflict or harm. We showed them the beautifully hand screen printed wedding stationary from Seed.. which you will soon be able to purchase from our Eco Chic Boutique launching next week.

And finally they talked to a furniture maker, David Ames about how to commission a piece of furniture that all the guests can contribute to, making a meaningful, sustainable and lasting gift to mark your wedding day. A bed that David made for a couple last year was the hit of the show!

You can contact Manic Organic by emailing Sally.
Alison can be reached by email too.
If you want to contact Jackie please contact us and we will give you her details.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , Press

Are you planning an unusual green wedding?

Are you planning an unusual green or eco friendly wedding?

The BBC It's Not Easy Being Green are looking for a couple who would like to tell them all about their ethical wedding plans and feature in their new series to be aired early next year. We will be working with them so you will also benefit from all of GreenUnion's expertise and knowhow too.

If you are interested please get in touch with Rosie@GreenUnion.co.uk for more details.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , News , Press

A Gorgeous Green Wedding

The wedding day dawned bright and sunny last Saturday for Sarah and Paul who chose to celebrate their union in the beautiful setting of Coombe Farm Woodlands, an organic farm near Tiverton in Devon.

Because you still can't legally marry, according to English law, in an outside setting, Sarah and Paul were first married in a civil ceremony, witnessed by a small group of close friends and family, at Tiverton registry office the day before their wedding celebration. Friday evening saw this group arrive at Coombe Farm where they all stayed for the whole weekend in the ancient farmhouse.

The setting:
They tied the knot under an ancient oak at Coombe Farm in a moving ceremony of their own, surrounded by wild flowers, their family and friends. The very personal and spiritual woodland ceremony was led by a close friend and they were surrounded by family and friends. Sarah and Paul's 3 boys took a big part in the ceremony, caring for the rings, carrying candles and reading a prayer during the ceremony.

As well as using the beautiful 17th Century Barn at Coombe Farm for the celebrations, Over The Moon Tents & Events supplied a yurt for the chill out zone, a cute Merlin tent for the kids, flags and music and, whilst they are not immediately local, they certainly reflect Sarah and Paul’s ethical interests and supplied everything they needed to enhance the festival feel of the whole day.

The festival feel grew as guests arrived early to set up camp in the field alongside the yurt and dining tent completing the arc around the stone circle. The campsite was supplied with the best of all luxury mobile composting loos supplied by Thunderbox2Go. Instead of having a wedding gift list, guests were encouraged by Paul and Sarah to pay for trees to be planted by the Woodland Trust, offsetting the carbon miles they generated to attend the wedding.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials

Sarah & Paul

We're all thinking hugely positive thoughts for Sarah and Paul's wedding this Saturday and watching the weather anxiously because even though nothing will dampen their love, or the day itself, a little bit of sunshine will warm everyone's cockles.

Sarah, a homeopath and course co-ordinator and her partner Paul, an orthodontist live on the beautiful North Devon coast with their three sons Ben, Toby and Harry. They’ve chosen to have a truly local and eco friendly wedding by conducting a spiritual woodland wedding ceremony at Coombe Farm near Tiverton, where they will be joined by family and friends for a mini festival celebration of camping, local food, flowers and music.

Sarah says: “We wanted to have a green wedding because that’s generally the way we live our lives anyway. We like to avoid excess, we’re not big consumers and we want to minimise our impact on the environment. The wedding industry is so full of wastage. It’s not good for the world and it’s not good for us. We’re not being evangelical about it but we have three children and we are aware of our impact on their future.

Our wedding is just one small thing, but think of the impact and the number of people we could influence by setting an example.” And instead of having a wedding gift list, their guests are being encouraged to offset the carbon miles they have generated to attend the wedding by paying for trees to be planted by the Woodland Trust.

Keeping the local theme, Sarah's engagement ring was made specially for her by April Doubleday, a British Designer/Maker of contemporary, fair trade and ethical jewellery who also lives on, and gets her inspiration from, the North Devon Coast. The image above shows examples of April's fabulous new collection of Ethical Wedding Rings.

Posted in Green Wedding Jewellery , Natural Nuptials

Seven green ways to personalise your wedding day - Day 4

Only a few days to go before the Spring Equinox and Earth Day on April 22nd, so we thought it an appropriate time to highlight seven green ways to personalise your wedding day. On day four we suggest you:

CELEBRATE
Your love for one another by choosing a personalised ceremony, in line with your own beliefs. This can mean heaps more to most couples than the 'standard' one conducted by the registrar. The ceremony could be as simple as standing amongst family and friends to proclaim your committment to one another. You could use symbolic elements from traditional ceremonies like the Handfasting, an old English marriage ceremony where your hands are symbolically tied together with ribbons. Or you could choose a ceremony from the country of your origin somewhere else in the world, combining your different backgrounds.

However you choose to conduct your eco wedding ceremony, whether it's in a beautiful wood, under a special tree, a spot on the beach, in your favourite room or even the place in the city that means the most to you, it will be meaningful and personal to you both.

Our directory of wedding venues has some fantastic places where you could choose to hold your earth friendly wedding ceremony. And they are all run by beautiful people too!

Posted in Green Wedding Inspiration , Natural Nuptials

Did you throw a green wedding?

If you threw and green wedding last year and you've got some gorgeous photos of the day then please get in touch with us. We have a writer for Red Magazine looking for a truly eco chic wedding with earth friendly details to use in her article championing the rise of green celebrations. Email us on info@greenunion.co.uk and we will call you back.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , Press

A green Christmas wedding

Esther and Nigel were married a few days before Christmas at a gorgeous self catering venue, Huntsham Court near Exeter in Devon, England.

For Esther, environmental issues are very important in both her work and personal life, so a green wedding was the obvious choice. They hired a self catering venue and did it all themselves, calling on friends and family whose combined fashion, design and cookery skills ensured the eco was chic too.

The wedding feast was created by a local catering company whose fabulous menu was made up entirely from locally grown seasonal produce based on regional recipes with wine from a Cornish vineyard. The whole house was decorated with candles and foliage collected from the hedgerows and venue grounds, while Esther's bouquet was made up of mistletoe which is imbued with the ancient mysticism of vitality and fertility, a symbol for peace and a message for loved ones.

What's more, this wonderfully earth friendly wedding, apart from treading lightly on our planet, was very light on the bank balance which gave Esther and Nigel something to celebrate!

You can read more about Esther and Nigel's wedding story, and what Esther herself has to say about it here.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratualte Esther and Nigel on the arrival of their very precious Juno.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials

Vineeta & Tom

Vineeta & Tom have just begun to plan their wedding and will be filling us in, from time to time, with the ups and downs, highs and lows of throwing an eco wedding in Cornwall.

Wedding date: 9 May 2008
Wedding Venue: Bedruthan Steps Hotel, Cornwall, UK

How many guests are coming to your wedding and where from?
We have around 60 wedding guests and most of them are from the UK. Our friends who live in the UK, Tom's first family and a few relatives will be at the wedding. My parents who live in Dubai and my sister from India will also be there. Since our friends and family are scattered around the Midlands and the South of England, we thought Cornwall will be a good place to choose.

I also have a very large number of relatives in India, so to avoid excessive CO2 emmissions by travel, Tom and I have planned another celebration in India in the year 2009. We will travel there, so discouraging another 100 people from flying to UK.

Also we are getting married on a Friday, which has made our guests plan a weekend break in Cornwall.

Do you have a budget and do you think you'll be able to stick to it?
Yes we do and we believe that we will be able to stick to our budget, and being green hasn't made it any more expensive.

Why is it important to you to throw an eco-wedding? What inspired you?
An eco-wedding was the first thing on our minds when we thought of getting married. Tom and I love the outdoors and we enjoy being close to nature. We would love to start our married life with a positive impact, or neutral effect on the climate.

Please can you tell us a little about the eco-elements of your wedding.
We have decided to use a local florist, Stephanie who encourages the use of local flowers. We are using natural shells for table decorations and most of these shells that our decorator Jo is using are from her own wedding, hence reuse rather than buying new ones. The shells are to reflect the seaside theme of the wedding.

About clothes, we are trying to find clothes from The Dressmarket. At the same time, Tom and I believe in wearing something fun, rather than traditional, since it is a civil ceremony. Although we think wedding dresses are really beautiful, they somehow cannot be reused in our own life, so should be sold or passed on. Rather than buying an organic wedding dress that can only be worn for 10 hours on your wedding day, we are planning to buy clothes which we might be able to use again, for special occasions.

The venue that we have selected has been chosen as a Green Tourism Award winner, and they offer an opportunity to guests to offset their carbon footprint. We're happy that they encourage the use of local and organic food. They use low energy lighting and their environmental policies make us really happy to be holding our wedding at Bedruthan Steps Hotel.

Do you think it's easy to be both stylish and green on your wedding day?
It's interesting for us to find environmentally friendly alternatives. We certainly don't need to be unstylish to be green. In fact there are many designers, florists and decorators who are into green living. That means that the fashion industry is making a new way to greener life. All the elements we are planning, according to us, are really stylish.

Have you got any tips, so far, for other brides looking to throw an eco-wedding?
Follow your heart, if you want to have a green wedding, just have one. Don't worry about what your families will think of you and who won't follow you. If you believe in having a green wedding there are a lot of people that can help you achieve it and it's no more expensive to plan a green wedding than a normal one.

It is just very important that we take a stand, to encourage wedding suppliers to make their services much more environmentally friendly. The more people support green issues, the more people will produce things with less environmental impact.

Posted in Green Wedding Blogger Brides , Natural Nuptials

Now here's a story to warm the heart

This weekend a couple from Cornwall in the West Country of England are planning to have as green a wedding as possible and it certainly isn't going to cost the earth. Russell and Alexia met at a series of Climate Change events so when they decided to marry it was only natural that they would throw an eco friendly wedding.

They say its a simpler way of doing it and keeps sight of the real meaning of marriage, which is love and the promise of your new future as husband and wife.

Invitations were sent online, any printing they've had done is by a local printer with vegetable dyes on recycled paper. Their rings are made locally of wood from a salvaged tree, the food has all be sourced within the area, the toast will be in Cornish sparkling wine, their outfits have been sourced from charity shops and adapted to their own styles by a talented seamstress, the guests are encouraged to car share and the reception is only a five minute walk from the church. Lexi's Mum has made some intriguing flowers out of saved plastic bags and collected spring blossom has been dried for the confetti. They have even decided to give their guests low energy light bulbs as wedding favours!

And best of all, the whole celebration will come in way below the average cost of getting married in the UK which is now estimated to be around £18,000.

Read the whole story by Louise Walter over on the BBC website.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , News

A bicycle made for two

Mandy and Jonathan, who kept us up to date here at GreenUnion HQ about their wedding preparations, were married in May and here's an extract from an original article about their wedding by Julie Lastarade for French Elle on 4 June 2007 and translated for us by our partner Diane who runs covert cabin in the Perigord Vert region of France - the ultimate in honeymoon hideaways.

The greenest day of their lives

Dress made of fairtrade cotton, guests discouraged to come by car. In England, the eco-chic are getting married in the same way they live their lives, by respecting the planet. And from these good principles real businesses are emerging.

Posted in Green Wedding Natural Nuptials , Press