Eco-Friendly Wedding

Like most ceremony sites these days, we can't have confetti or rice thrown at us. Confetti leaves a lot of garbage behind, which someone must pick up or it becomes litter. Rice can make birds quite ill because it expands in their little tummies. The two options suggested to us were bird seed or bubbles. I'm not thrilled by the idea of bird seed being thrown at me, though the birds would like it! Bubbles only works on a nice day (who wants to stand outside and blow bubbles if it's raining). Not to mention, the containers create garbage, which is not something we want to do. AND bubbles can actually stain some women's dresses (or so the internet has told me).

Wade and I are not having a totally carbon neutral wedding. That would involve off-setting the travelling of ourselves and all our guests, imposing strict requirements on the reception site regarding the food and drink, among many other things. We are, however, trying to reduce our carbon footprint. This goal means we are trying to be considerate of the environment, reduce the waste we generate, re-use when we can, recycle, and be considerate of where purchases come from. For example, we are going to try to ensure food and alcohol is from more local sources. Buying local reduces carbon emissions: enery (gas) is used to transport those items from its source to us, which creates pollution (carbon).

Buying apples from New Zealand, wine from Australia, beer from Europe and strawberries from California will release substantial amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, from the gas used to transport the items. One option to reduce one's carbon footprint is to: buy Ontario apples (if not in season, North Carolina is closer than New Zealand); wine from Prince Edward County (no sacrifice there!); local beer (such as a microbrewery or Toronto's Steamwhistle); and local strawberries (again, when in season).

We are most likely going to off-set our honeymoon. More information on off-setting on another day, though!

For more information
Carbon Neutral: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/carbon_neutral.asp or
Carbon Footprint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint

Ask yourself: is there one little thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint? For example, turning down or up (depending on if it's your air conditioner or heating) the thermostat by even 1/2 C or 1F can make a huge difference!