wedding

How to keep your wedding local and organic

The average cost of a wedding in the Americas these days is upwards of $30 000. Not only was this not in our budget, we felt that consuming that amount of product was unnecessary and wastefull of the earths resources. We set out to come in under $10 000 with as light of footprint possible left behind us.

Food

The most important part of a wedding after the guests and the actual couple! The reception was held at Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co. which is fortunately located just down the street from us. Their principles are closely aligned with ours: local, sustainable, organic. They serve amazing food prepared with the least amount of impact, some of their pizzas are even in lign with the Hundred Mile Diet.

At our appartment, during photos after the first ceremony, we served organic apple juice “punch” from Capers and some amazing raw cookies from Guerilla Foods. Our wedding cake was made by Capers, and decorated by them with beautiful organic flowers.

Gowns

My first ideas were to find a used gown or a rental gown, but nothing really suited my tastes or my height. I was lucky to come across Chloë Angus, a local stustainable designer, who has crazy talent in dress making and a lot of experience with wedding gowns and bridal parties. My gown was made of organic silk, tailored for the perfect fit, all for a price that is far less expensive than the traditional premade less ethical gowns you find in a bridal store.
My rehearsal dress was a last minute splurge, also from the Chloë Angus collection and made from vintage material.

Bridesmaid gowns were a challenge as well, because finding six identical, used dresses for people varying in size and height is impossible. One option would be to let the girls find their own dresses, but I really wanted to have the traditional bridesmaid look. I knew that getting the gowns made would be the only way to go for a sustainable dress, and Chloë was been able to accomodate us for the same price as the average storebought bridesmaid gown, except custom fit for each woman and made from organic raw silk!

Tux’s

As for tuxedo’s, the men rented their attire from a Classy a canadian owned company. By renting, the the tuxes are able to have long, usefull lives, and the shoes arent tossed into a corner somewhere after only one use.
We intend to make our wedding a celebration of local talent and organic goodness. We are using crops, supplies & services from organic suppliers from around the lower mainland for all food and drink. Below is a list of our team and what they are providing.

Accessories

-My wedding shoes were Tera Plana, organic leather hand made shoes from europe (ouch). I couldn’t find organic shoes here that were fancy enough, needless to say, the girls found their own shoes in local shoe stores.
-My lingerie was canadian made, bought at La Vie en Rose. I tried to find organic lingerie, but the ones I liked came from europe with no canadian distributer. NO THANKS.
-My jewlery were family heirlooms, symbols of a connection to both of my grandmothers and my mother.
-Flowers seemed like a waste to me, I like them better in the ground than in vases, especially if they have been genetically modified or given food derived from petrolium. My bridesmaids made my bouquet out of flowers in the garden (and lettuce for some greenery - which was later eaten) A spare bouquet was made by my father in law in the same manner - don’t great minds think alike!) We decided against boutenires and bouquets for the flower girls. If you do decide to do the traditional flowers experience, find an organic grocery store like Capers, support them and get flowers that are pesticide free!
-Our rings were locally made of wood by a pair of folks who live “off the grid” up in Williams Lake, BC. They represent our committment to eachother, and our committment to the earth to leave it a little better than we found it. There is a lot of litterature on Gold and Diamond mining out there, read it before you decide to put it on your finger till death do you part.

Music

Take advantage of the local talent that surrounds you! We had West Coast folk vibes supplied by Tarkin. For our ceremony music, we were honoured to have Bachan Kaur Khalsa play us down the isle.

Sustainable Gift Registry

In our quest to make a lighter footprint on the earth, we had a challenging time creating a gift registry! When looking at the “made in…” tags of our things, we notice that the pruducts often come from far away places, manufactured in undesirable conditions. Luckily, Mountain Equipment Co-op has a “wish list” of camping gear we need to make our almost carbon neutral honeymoon possible. MEC has made a significant effort to ensure that their factories are not destroying people, or the places that host them.
We also registered at the Bay for the home essentials that we can’t find at MEC. We tried our best to chose things that were made in Canada, but this proved very challenging!

We encouraged our guests to give us “previously loved” gifts as well!

Donations

In lieu of gifts, many guests contributed to one of our favorite cheritable organizations:

Carbon Offsetters

Carbon neutral

Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in “green” technologies such as solar and wind power. (Oxford University Press)

We hope to have the first carbon neutral wedding, unless someone beats us to it. Either way, the process will be fun and the process will bring awareness to global warming and what action people can take to make a difference.

how to get here

We ask that you find a way to get to our wedding without the aid of fossil fuels. If that is an entirely unreasonable request, we ask that you commit to making one lasting change that permanently reduces your individual or household energy and resource consumption. This could be changing your lights to compact flourscent bulbs, biking to work, buying local and organic, taking holidays close to home, planting a garden, buying Green Power certificates for your business’s electricity, etc. Transportation options are listed below in order of climate friendliness.

walk

One of the least carbon intensives ways to arrive in style. Not recommended for those living outside of BC.

bicycle

One of the most efficient forms of human transport ever created! The are many bike racks around the building. We are right on the seawall so you can take a leisurely pedal to 1590 West 1st.

public transit

We have an excellent public transit system that Lisa & I have come to rely on heavily after deciding to give up the car. It’s not carbon free but the sytem is already running so using transit will not add any significant additional emmissions to the atmosphere. The 2, 4, 7, 9, 17, 22, 44, 50, 84 and 99 all come within a very short walk of our home. See Translink for trip scheduling.

automobile

Electric would be best, followed by biodiesel or hybrid. We highly encourage you to leave your dinosour powered steel luxury tanks at home. If you absolutely must drive then it will cost you. There is a paid lot on the North side of 1st Ave. Also we ask that you offset your CO2 from a variety of carbon offset options here.

train

Although not guilt free, the train does have a smaller emmissions footprint than flying. Why not turn your visit to BC into a luxury holiday with transportation and accomodation provided by VIA Rail.

flights

Welcome to the worst of the worst. Did you know that a single round trip flight from Ontario will produce almost a tonne of C02 per seat, per flight! For our Ontario friends that must travel by plane see our offset page to choose your carbon offsets.

Carbon Offsets

Producing C02 is inevitable in our industrialized, oil driven society. Getting to our wedding will result in emissions despite our intentions to keep the event as local as possible. In an effort to minimize our wedding’s contribution to global warming, we ask that all guests travelling to our ceremory offset their C02 emissions. There are several ways that you can do this.

  • Change of all of your lights to compact flourscent (CFL) bulbs
  • Commit to driving less, biking more, taking the bus & walking
  • Get a programmable thermostat & program it to turn the heat down at night & when away
  • Purchase carbon offsets from Offsetters or other offset supplier for some or all of your lifestyle
  • Write a letter to your MP, environment minister, premier and prime minister to ask them what they are doing about global warming

And they were married

The symbols of our commitment - to each other and the earth
Our dream was to have a wedding that was local and organic, carbon neutral and witnessed by all of our friends and family and it came true on June 9th, 2007. Our plans changed considerably with the 100% chance of rain, but in the end, everything worked out beautifully. The ceremony, planned to happen outside in the courtyard of our Co-op, happened inside our tiny apartment, and then again at Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co. For us, the key to our dreams was the ability to include all of our communities and family because we believe the support of the community behind the commitment we are making is essential for a successful marriage.

In the subpages following we tell how we achieved our environmental goals surrounding the wedding from everything from underwear to flowers!

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