Saying "I Do" The Green Way

Start creating the world that you want to share with your life partner and the healthier, more beautiful world that you'd like to raise your children in by creating an environmentally friendly wedding celebration. Here are some ideas to get you started;

1. Pick a unique local spot such as an art gallery, nonprofit space, organic restaurant or farm, green hotel, or botanical garden. Choose a setting that's convenient to the most guests to minimize travel impacts.

2. Arrive at the ceremony in a horse-drawn carriage, cycle rickshaw, or hybrid car.

3. For invitation, select recycled, handmade, or plantable papers processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable- or soy-based inks. or even better, choose online invitations and gift registry.

4. To plan bachelor and bachelorette parties, consider organic wine (or beer) tasting / an organic spa treatment or something low-impact and outdoorsy like a camping, surfing, sailing, kayaking, or fishing trip.

5. Register with the I Do Foundation or another site that gives a percentage of gift purchases to your chosen cause, or simply ask for gifts to charity instead of material goods.

6. For your wedding decor, select organic flowers, and/or decorate with branches, dried grasses, grains, greens, berries, or fabric flowers - Classic Creations offer how to make fabric flowers. Choose beeswax or soy-based candles over those made with paraffin, a petroleum byproduct. Throw biodegradable confetti or organic rose petals instead of releasing butterflies. Donate the flowers to a hospital or rest home at the end of the day

7. Showcase green gustatory pleasures by catering from a local organic restaurant that does off-site catering. Go for a chic eclectic look by mixing and matching thrift-store plates and dishes (and donating them back when you're done). Make arrangements to donate leftover food to a local food bank or homeless shelter.

8. Whether you prefer film or digital photographs, look for a photographer who will do digital proofs to save paper and chemicals. Avoid single-use cameras, but ask friends with digi-cams to share their photos with all the guests online in a free Flickr group or Snapfish group room you set up for your wedding.

9. For your honeymoon, engage in ecotourism, which can be as rugged or luxurious as you want it to be (find listings that suit your style through Conservation International, National Geographic, Planeta.com, or ResponsibleTravel.com).

Consider taking a trip that benefits an environmental group; perhaps boating in Florida's Dry Tortugas, birding in Alaska, or walking the Italian Alps with Sierra Club Outings.