27th May 2019
Today we have a guest post from talented desginer Natalie of Flamboyant Invites.
If you’re underway with your wedding planning, one thing that you will quickly notice is that weddings are costly! So why not invest that wisely and strive to make a difference with your spend?! The good news is that it can be done with very little effort and thought and you don’t have to sacrifice style for sustainability! This is because there are so many eco-conscious suppliers, products, services and inspiration out there.
Here are 5 tips that I’d like to share, to help you create a wedding that stands out by making a difference too!
With an average cost of a wedding of over £17,600 in the UK and with an average of 24,500 weddings performed in the UK each year, this amounts to a significant amount spent each year on weddings! So why not feel all warm and fuzzy inside by choosing to invest in wedding professionals that value sustainability too?
In the world of wedding stationery, many paper manufacturers and suppliers take sustainability very seriously indeed. Papers are produced in accordance with the strict standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which protects forest biodiversity, their ecological processes and the communities that they support. There are tree planting programmes to replace the trees that are felled. The water used to produce paper is returned to rivers in pristine condition and by-products from the process are used in agriculture.
As a stationer, I choose my paper sources and print companies carefully, not only to ensure that they are using sustainable paper sources and eco-friendly inks, but are continually striving to reduce the environmental impact of their businesses. This in turn ensures that I can offer sustainable stationery to my clients too.
This is a message that we often build into our everyday shopping habits, so why not for your wedding too?! By using suppliers that are local to your venue, wherever possible, or by selecting locally grown and seasonal flowers and food, you will be immediately reducing the environmental impact of your big day. You might also decide to choose FairTrade, or shop from small businesses or artisans – either way, you’ll be making a difference with your wedding spend.
For couples who already have all that they need to set up life together, or who don’t necessarily wish to set up a traditional gift list, you might instead wish to share your passion for supporting a particular charity. By opting to register for donations to charitable organisations instead of gifts, or creating a crowd funding page, you can not only share your charitable endeavours with your guests, but raise funds too!
There is often a lot of waste associated with wedding celebrations and whilst you can prevent unwanted or duplicate gifts by having a gift registry, what about those items from the day that might otherwise be wasted? You can reduce that waste by donating leftovers, or by forgoing favours that are often left behind by guests anyway. Whilst it might not be practical for couples, or their caterers, to organise left over food to go to homeless shelters, leftover flowers can be given away as gifts, donated, or composted. Equally, bridal gowns and suits, paper goods, glass or metal table decorations can be recycled/ upcycled, ebayed or given to charity shops.
Any thought given to reducing, re-using or recycling on your wedding day will be well worthwhile, but perhaps it is more meaningful for couples to strive to create a more enduring environmentally/ socially conscious foundation for their married lives together. After all, each decision and action we take impacts our world, so why not be intentional about the way that we celebrate our marriage and continue with our lives together?
Flamboyant Invites are based in Surrey. Natalie's motto is 'your stationery, your way': "I’m a great believer in doing what you love and what makes your heart sing. Designing wedding stationery is where I feel most creatively free and you will often find me up with the larks, at my computer, with a new design idea in mind. I can’t get enough of it! When I’m not at my desk, you’ll find me walking the dog in the Surrey countryside, enjoying home cooked family meals together and chilling out on the sofa at the end of a day, or enjoying an inspirational book. For me, happiness is about connecting with my creativity and sharing this with others. It is always an amazing feeling to create something people really love, which is meaningful to them and their story together."
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