My Low Waste Wedding

Photos by Ashley Biltz Photography. Seriously, check her out. She’s an amazing wedding photographer who travels around the country making people like us so happy with her beautiful photos.

This past May, I got married. Since I have now gone through the wedding process and am also a zero waste blogger, I’ve decided to do the subversive, rebellious thing and write a blog about my attempt at a low waste wedding.

Weddings are a real riot. You’re constantly torn between thinking, “This is all just a bit of silliness, so no reason to get bent out of shape about it,” and “This is a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime event that is a defining moment of my life, so everything has to be perfect.”

If you are currently straddling that line, my heart goes out to you. It’s not easy.

I was lucky enough to have a wonderful wedding where we maintained a lot of agency in keeping it low-waste. Not everyone is that lucky, but I hope if you do want to lower your wedding waste that this blog will inspire you to keep at it.

Of course, the most zero waste wedding is no wedding at all, so the question remains:

Why Did I Have a Wedding?

My mom gave me very good advice when she said, “Do whatever you have to do to feel married.” If all you need is a judge saying, “Y’all are married now,” then more power to you. For me, I’ve always appreciated a little ceremony to bookmark my life. I went to my graduations. I have birthday parties every year. And I knew deep down that I needed the ceremony and guests and the dinner and the party to feel like I’d taken the next step in this life-long relationship.

Keeping It Small

I’m 99% certain this was the most controversial–but most essential–decision about my intimate, low-waste wedding. Both my partner and I have large extended families and friend groups that are all a big part of our lives, but we decided to invite:

Our Wedding party (and their significant others)

Our immediate families (and their significant others)

We eventually decided to expand this to aunts and uncles and several friends we’d known for 10 years or more, and on the big day, we had 37 guests.

Keeping our wedding this small allowed us to do major wedding jobs far more sustainably than is often the case. First and foremost…

Our Wedding Was (mostly) DIY.

Doing a wedding yourself is haaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. I have a newfound respect for event planners. First of all, it’s just plain time-consuming, even if you’re only planning an event for 30ish people. By the month before the big day, I’d essentially taken off work to plan my wedding. However, doing the wedding ourselves (with the exception of food and flowers) meant we could source most of our wedding sustainably. What we weren’t able to make we either borrowed or rented (i.e. the guitars were rented from Guitar Center and the dinnerware was rented from Northwest Event Rentals).

Over the last few years, I’ve found places around my home where I can sustainably source art and home projects. Whenever we could, we bought secondhand materials or used what we already had around to create the wedding of our dreams. Here’s all the stuff we made:

Our Invitations

 

The ceremony decorations (including the wedding arch my dad made the DAY OF THE WEDDING)

 

The reception decor

The Outfits

Look at this guy. Nathan wore a suit he already owned. He bought his tie, pocket square, and shirt from a closing sale at our local Macy’s.

My dress was actually a skirt-and-top combo. The skirt was a re-purposed wedding dress skirt I bought at an arts-and-crafts fair and the top and veil I got at David’s Bridal. (Side note: I highly recommend you go anywhere but David’s Bridal for your wedding dress. Not only is it super unsustainable, but my bad experience there will go down in family legend.) I bought my shoes second hand at Goodwill and I already owned my headband. My earrings were my “something old” and “something borrowed” that my mom lent me for the occasion.

My ring was from the same company as my engagement ring. Nathan’s ring was bought from Etsy.

The Venue

We picked Fort Townsend State Park on the Olympic Peninsula as the venue for our wedding. While the decision was made initially because it was one of the cheapest, it also provided so much natural beauty that didn’t call for excessive, wasteful decorations.

We were also lucky that the venue included “The Friend’s Barn,” which was more like a miniature lodge complete with HVAC, a fireplace, audio equipment, and tables and chairs.

The Food & Flowers

My husband loves to cook and we both love to eat, so having good food at our wedding was a high priority. We tried to make it as zero waste as possible by sourcing from small local companies that had vegan options.

Paellaworks (food)

Central Market Pulsbo (Flowers)

The Cookie Counter & Flying Apron (Dessert)

Big shout out to The Cookie Counter for letting me bring my own tupperware for the cookies.

Less is always more.

My husband introduced me to the show “Four Weddings” when we first started dating, making me immediately and painfully aware of just how crazy the wedding economy is. It’s so easy to get sucked in by the Pinterest parade and strive for an excessively decorated wedding at a fancy venue with an elaborate dress.

But at the end of the day, we wanted our wedding to be about people. We wanted it to be about each other and the people who we love, who love us. In my opinion, if you get too bogged down in the physical details, you’re gonna miss out on the people who make your life happen.

 

 

  

Before I Go, I Want to Say Thank You.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I never would have accomplished so much if it weren’t for my amazing support system. Low waste weddings are inherently DIY and there wasn’t a single guest who didn’t help with the set up, take down, or just straight up do a job I would usually have to pay someone more wasteful to do. So thank you to everyone involved in helping us achieve the perfect wedding.

Thanks, guys