Eco-friendly and Sustainable Weddings!

Hey! So in day-to-day life I’m very much into sustainable living (recycling, avoid single use plastic, reducing my carbon footprint ect) and therefore also trying to follow these values when planning my wedding so would like to start a discussion and share ideas on how to keep your wedding as eco-friendly as possible but without breaking the bank or completely scrimping on the details.


I’ll start with a few conscious choices I’ve made:
1) My dress is a cancelled order I purchased from a boutique from the website StillWhite. I was looking for a pre-loved dress when I came across ‘the one’.. so even though its technically still new I don’t feel so bad as the dress was otherwise unwanted. Also got it £300 cheaper than its RRP so added bonus for the budget!
2) Booked a local venue. The majority of our family and friends all live in Essex so it’s less travelling for everyone. We’re even suggesting they all come to together in minibuses to avoid bringing lots of cars.
3) A fully vegetarian menu. Now this is more due to the groom and I being vegetarian, but no meat = less carbon. Plus I would feel too much guilt serving dead animals.
4) Flowers…. Artificial or real? Now this one I’ve not worked out yet. Obviously there’s the whole process involved in growing, cutting, transporting and storing real flowers… but artificial are plastic / silk and I wonder what happens to them afterwards. Do you keep them or does the designer take them back and reuse them over and over?