Tweedle Press: "Zero Paper Waste Weddings"

When I got married almost 4 years ago, I wasn't exactly the "eco warrior" that I am today. Sure I sought out a park district venue, had all sorts of earthy decorations, and hand made my programs, menus, and place cards. I've always been woodsy and crafty. Having my invitations letterpress printed inspired me to learn the craft and start my own business, but it has taken several years of dedicated work to arrive at my current level of eco-insanity. Brides these days have far more resources to help them plan a green wedding (The Green Bride Guide is a great place to start), and far more vendors of all types are promoting green choices. More and more paper manufacturers are recognizing the importance of sustainability and are offering a wider variety of options, so just because your wedding paper products are eco-friendly doesn't have to mean they're drab or made of hemp. In fact, Tweedle Press can turn your own junk mail and scrap papers into beautiful, hand recycled and custom tinted papers for all your wedding goodies.

You may have read Amanda from Spilled Ink Press' blog entry a little while ago on how naming a "Recycling Ambassador" can help you make sure your wedding paper products don't get thrown in the regular trash. If you want to take the idea a little further, think about the idea of a "Zero Paper Waste Wedding." Commercial recycling (what happens when you throw paper into a blue bin) is great and your paper products should absolutely end up there eventually. However, a lot of energy and (sometimes) nasty chemicals get used by commercial paper recyclers to create new paper, so the best thing to do is get a few more uses out of your paper before turning it in. No, I'm not talking about writing your invitations on the back of store receipts. What you can do is collect your junk mail, office scrap papers, even old gift wrap, and hand it over to Tweedle Press for Personal Recycling. Not only do we poo-poo the use of chemicals, but we can tint your custom paper to your specifications, add floral elements, or even some symbolic shreds of a love letter from your old highschool boyfriend.

Your new (old) paper can be used to print your invitations, programs, menus, place cards, and anything else you can think of. Then, after your handy Recycling Ambassador collects all the material after your wedding, you can bring it back to us again to be turned into Thank You cards for wedding gifts or personal stationery! Sending notes to the people on paper made from what the gifts were wrapped in? Now that's what I call Zero Paper Waste.

While I'm obviously interested in the paper side of things, there are other aspects of your wedding that you can apply the Zero Waste idea to. Investigate having leftover food donated or composted, consider passing once used items like centerpieces along to other brides on CraigsList, plant trees in your guests' names instead of handing out souveniers. If I had it to do again, there are lots of things about my wedding that I'd reconsider. It was a perfect day in pretty much every way, but I know now that there was probably a lot of unnecessary waste that could have been prevented with a little thoughtful planning. These days I'm trying to make amends by inspiring couples I work with to think sustainably about their big day, and you can start by imagining new life for those takeout menus collecting dust in a drawer.

Tweedle Press, located in Chicago, uses earth-happy materials to create stylish, unique paper goods: a full-service design, papermaking, and letterpress print shop. Yay!

Nina Interlandi Bell