The OurWeddingDay.com Blog

Unless you have been off planning your wedding in a dark cave without any electricity or word from the outside world, you are fully aware of being "green" (a.k.a. eco-friendly / earth friendly / saving the planet one reusable bag at a time...).  Millions of people have made small adjustments to their lives which, collectively, create a large and positive impact on our planet.

Now, as bride-to-be, you can take it one step further.  Head out to your local bookstore and pick up a copy of The Green Bride Guide: How to Create an Earth-Friendly Wedding on Any Budget by Kate Harrison.  It can help you have the most spectacular wedding while simultaneously being eco-chic!

The book covers planning you engagement party, locations for the ceremony, invitations, flowers, and all the way up to the honeymoon.  Happy (green) planning!

Do you know what’s crazier than planning one wedding? Planning two! And buying a house! And working! Sure, why not? Modern liberated women and all that.

We are indeed planning two weddings. Last week, my fellow Real Bride Blogger said that she was not happy about cutting her guest list. And I know how she feels. Jonathon and I started with a wish list of all the people we would love to invite to the wedding and came up with approximately 400 people. (Big families, lots of friends.) But with our $8,000 budget (yes I said it and I’ll break it all down for you soon), we couldn’t afford to have anything else if we came up with this many people to feed. We would spend $8,000 of food?! What about invitations, a dress, a tux, you know places to sit?

So, we decided to carefully decide on 60 of our nearest and dearest friends and family. It was hard, but we did it. And we started planning an eco-friendlier, lush, budget friendly wedding. And then, we remembered all those people who got left out and felt a pang of regret. But modern liberated women can have everything they want! Right? Well, yes with sacrifice.

We opted to throw a vow renewal on New Years Day (2 weeks post wedding). Now, it’s super informal at Mr. J’s family church (undecorated), with a potluck Southern Sunday after church style meal that our friends, family, and we cook for. The budget for that? $50 church fee.  The guest list? 400.

A groom in Beirut recently planted more than 1,000 trees in honor of his wedding guests.

Nidal Khalil, the groom and his sister Zena, a Lebanese recycling artist and environmental activist collaborated with the American University of Beirut's Nature Conservation Center for Sustainable Futures to plant the 1,000 trees across Lebanon.

Zena said, "Growing up in Nigeria my brother Nidal and I developed a special connection to the land.  Since we were flying people in from all around the world, I thought it would be a great idea to plant trees for each of the over 1,000 guests attending my brother's wedding.  We wanted to start a trend and usually trends in Lebanon start with drinking and dancing, but we thought with the trees we could make the idea interesting enough that it would inspire others.  The tree gift brochures and small wooden tree silhouette souvenirs, donated by IBSAR, aided us in raising awareness among our guests."

Click HERE to read more about this family's gift to guests and to the Earth.

We’re proud at OurWeddingDay.com to be the only wedding planning website offering brides the tools they need to create the ultimate “green” wedding from start to finish.   Our online tools and resources can help you make eco-friendly choices as part of your overall wedding plan, culminating with a gloriously "green" wedding ceremony good enough to make even Mother Earth proud.  A green wedding plan not only reflects your devotion to the groom, but also to the responsible choices that lead to a greener world.