Green Wedding Ideas??? (merged)

greentomato

Hi everyone

Thanks for all these ideas. I'm getting married in June and trying to be green and moneysaving, but we have a lot of friends and family coming who are expecting a good knees-up so I've got a job on my hands!

I guess that some of the ideas on the Moneysaving Wedding Tips chat thread might also be helpful, although its such a long thread that I'm only about a third of the way through it!
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=659#post659

I have to admit that mine won't be a completely green wedding, but I'm doing what I can. I thought that I'd better post a few ideas here instead of pinching everyone else's:

We are having a ceremony and reception in my father-in-law's garden, so avoiding lots of travelling between venues. (the official bit will be at a register office but no-one is invited to that!)

I've asked the caterer to use local/British produce (I can't afford organic). I met quite a few caterers before choosing one, and it surprised me that this wasn't something they had been asked about before. With a June wedding, in Kent, there should really be loads of choice without having to import anything. I chose the caterer who seemed most keen on the idea of producing a menu using seasonal food. I kept saying 'no Kenyan beans please!'

As we are providing the alcohol, I'm going to get a barrel of local bitter (called a polypin) produced at a small brewers just down the road. Local, and better than using cans/bottles, probably cheaper too.

We are hiring a farmers field next door for guests to camp in overnight. Not moneysaving for us really, but he doesn't want a lot of money for it, and it will save our guests a fortune on hotel bills, plus save on travelling to and from the hotels. And it should be good fun! (Although on the down side it might mean more people driving rather than taking public transport, but as the house isn't very easy to get to on public transport I don't think this will make much difference).

I've set up a website to avoid having to send out a mountain of paper to guests with maps, travel instructions, hotel lists etc. It's a free website, I got the link from somewhere on MSE and its been pretty easy to do. It's:
https://www.weddingpath.com I've emailed my website out to everyone, and I've had a lot of responses back saying how great and useful it is.

For my engagement ring, I have been given a ring that's been in the family which I'm going to get reset by a local jeweller, so avoiding any 'conflict' diamonds. I hadn't realised about the gold issue though - will have to give this some more thought.

That's all for now folks!