A Green and Just Celebration: Decor

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Real Green Weddings

Decor

"We decided early on to forego cut flowers, which are often grown under poor labor conditions with toxic pesticides, and which cost a lot but last only a short time. Instead, we decorated the wedding canopy with wide satin ribbon."

For centerpieces at the reception, Joelle and Ethan had a very clever idea. "We had our friends come for a 'shower' to a paint-your-own-pottery store in Washington DC about a month before the wedding. We asked them to decorate small pots, mugs, and bowls using a palette of four colors that would match the tablecloths and other items at the wedding. The deal was that if we could 'borrow' their art for use at our wedding, that would count as their 'gift' to us, and they would get it back after the celebration! The day before the wedding, we bought two dozen little jade plants, and repotted them in the hand-made pottery our friends had decorated. We placed each ceramic on a colored napkin, and sprinkled some Fair Trade Certified mini-chocolates from Divine around them. Our guests took their ceramic artwork, with plant inside, home with them from the wedding, and we've enjoyed seeing our thriving jade plants and the hand-painted ceramics in use in our friends' homes in the months following the wedding."

Favors

In addition to the potted plants, "we printed up custom prayer-and-song booklets (bentschers) for our guests. We wanted to print them on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. As this cost much more than virgin paper, we just printed fewer of them, and didn't take them out until late in the celebration when those who wanted to participate gathered to sing the 'Grace After Meals.'"

Their thank you notes were also printed on recycled, union-printed cards from Syracuse Cultural Workers. They were smart enough to put thank you notes on their registry so "most of the notecards were bought for us as gifts!"