Green Wedding Ideas??? (merged)

Iguana

http://www.edenproject.com/2152.html Lots of general info here.

including:

Council for Responsible Jewelery Practices.

http://www.responsiblejewellery.com/

Council Mission Statement
"Our objective is to promote responsible ethical, social and environmental practices throughout the diamond and gold jewellery supply chain,from mine to retail."

ailuro2

Second hand is the re-use,reduce recycle way to go.Well done for thinking of the planet at this busy and exciting time of your life!:T


The ring begins its life with you as only a piece of metal after all,and once polished will look like new, then you can imprint it with your own set of long and happy memories.:D

The method for obtaining new gold is horrendous, I've not bought anything made of new gold since I heard about it.Very sad.

Seakay

Don't know if it will include information on rings, but the Radio 4 series Shared Earth is focusing on green weddings this week. It is broadcast at 3pm today, but there is a listen again facility:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/sharedearth.shtml

SusanCarter

We got married in July 2005 when supposedly the average wedding cost £17000. Ours didn't even cost a tenth of that and like tee pee I couldn't have enjoyed an expensive wedding. We weren't particularly trying to be green or ethical but by not being extravagant I guess there are a lot of ways we were green or ethical although if we'd been conciously trying we could have done better. Here are the things we did that I can think of off-hand:

Wedding and reception both at church so no transport in between.

Buffet meal provided by church. Included strawberries from local PYO and homemade apple pies. I think it cost them about £4/head and was much more impressive than what we had envisaged but probably had less environmental impact than if a catering company had done it.

Photos done by friend on digital camera and given to those who wanted on CD so less "dud" photos printed. We ended up getting about 50 prints ranging from 7x5 to 10x8 for our wedding album. It cost about £30 and we were able to review them on the computer.

Driven to church by my brother (who was giving me away) in my parents new Corsa so much less fuel consumption than if we'd hired a car.

Cake made by friend who had it iced by a friend of hers. (Given as wedding present.)

Made our own invitations (I guess you could use e-mail to be really green) using a rubber stamp on the front rather than sticking loads of bits of paper etc on it. (Although the design therefore used less resources, I have to admit that the real reason we did it was to get them made quickly as we needed to get them sent fairly quickly.)

I made my own dress. I guess none of the material was green seeing as it was white but at least I know it wasn't made in some sweatshop and it cost about £70. Disadvantage is that I don't think I made it well enough to be able to sell it so it's not really reusable so probably not such a good idea.

We did try to grow our own flowers in tubs (both of us lived in flats so no garden) but they all flowered either too early or too late so ended up buying flowers from M&S (£10) to make bouquets for me and bridesmaid and button holes for various. I'd recommend if you do want to grow your own flowers that you have a large range of options (we had a selection of five) and pick things which usually have a long flowering season. This year the flowers we had planted all flowered at different times to last year but I don't think any of them were around when it was our anniversary so timing of flowers is very unreliable.

Bridesmaid wore outfit she already had. Again I have to admit that this was not intentional but after one very hot day looking for a dress we agreed that it was infinitely better than trying to go shopping again.

My shoes were white sandals which I now use for "everyday" wear in the summer.

Husband's outfit was bought specially but is now what he wears whenever he needs to wear a suit so will get full use out of it.

Best man, giver away and ushers all wore their own outfits.

Have to go now so will add more another time...

lynzpower

Ken-Dodds-Hairy-Knodule wrote:

Sounds a bit "hannibal" to me.

I know a load of goffs who would love it though. :-)

Edit: thinking about it, it's very unethical too (profitting drugs companies that test on animals for what amounts to vanity surgery).

And it still uses "traditional" metals, likely from the usual unethical sources.

its not a drugs company that does them its a artist with a lab afaik

scottishgypsie

BungleGirl wrote:

I am getting our wedding rings from www.touchwoodrings.ca - they are in Canada but I really love their values - they are a husband and wife who live a simple life in the middle of nowhere. They make wooden rings to order - you specify design (type of weed etc.). I have only exchanged a few emails with them so far but they seem lovely and have answered my many, many questions.

The rings are made of wood - mostly from their own trees and there are details on the sit about how the wood is collected etc. The fact that they are made of wood means that they have to be treated with more care but there are plenty of details on the website about this.

I know that buying from Canada is not ideal but I just really like these people and their lovely lifestyle. There are no prices on the website but to give you an idea I have been quoted approx. 290USD per ring which is about £150 each - I know it is not cheap but I can choose the wood (they have meanings for each wood on the website) and have exactly the design i want. There will never be another ring the same as mine as each piece of wood is unique.

They sometimes take a couple of days to reply to emails - their first grandson has just been born - but they will answe anything.

This is the most exciting part of my wedding - that and the fact that I will be wearing wellies!

Great links on the website too about 'dirty gold'!

I am definetly going to get my wife and myself these. What an excellent idea, thanks for sharing. It is a shame no-one in the UK does it though. Not good to come from the Americas. I'll need to tell my woodworking pal to contact them!

scottishgypsie

Actually, we're going to sell our wedding rings and get some ethical ones.

What's the best way to sell them?

Bonus is we didn't get round to getting them engraved. Fate?

BungleGirl

I'm really pleased you like the idea of the wooden rings. I did find one company in the uk https://www.woodenrings.co.uk - their rings look nice but in my mind don't come close to the ones from https://www.touchwoodrings.ca

I have convinced myself that it is okay to buy them from Canada because it is a tiny package to be posted and although ideally I would spend my money buying from a UK business these people seem to be living a beautifully ethical and simple life and I'm happy for my money to be going to them!

I ordered our rings a couple of weeks ago - we are getting married on 27th March and they have said that they will despatch them around the 23rd January (if I have remembered correctly). As they need to 'cure' for about 8 weeks before they can be worn regularly.

I am really really excited about our rings. I am having Purpleheart with a Golden Koa spralled band and my soon-to-be-husband is having the same but in reverse.

Sophie

PS I have no idea how best to sell gold wedding rings but I am sure that someone will be along soon who knows the best way to go about it.

BungleGirl

Also, having just reread my first post on the subject I did think that I should point out that although I have said that the rings and the wellies are the most exciting bit of my wedding - I am rather looking forward to actually marrying Mr BungleGirl too!

scottishgypsie

Thanks,

The rings are platinum BTW. Pretty sure that doesn't make a difference though! We got them to match Me Lady's engagement ring which I think will have to stay cos it's me Grannie's!

Also,

Hope you have a wonderful wedding in the spring.