Tree Hugging Family » eco-wedding

Where to find traditional green wedding dresses

Jennifer — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:40:22 +0000

It’s green wedding month here at THF, and earlier we looked at some vintage and casual green wedding dresses. However, if you’re looking for something a little more traditional, you still do have green options.

Your first best bet for a traditional gown that’s also earth-friendly is to go used. Wear your mama’s gown, look at consignment shops, or visit estate sales. For some new green gown choices keep reading…

Conscious Clothing creates unique green wedding gowns using environmentally friendly,SBP (sustainable and biodegradable product) hemp fabrics. The Basic Strapless Gown is shown above and the details on the organic cotton lace around the neckline is amazing!

Threadhead Creations: Actually, they carry some really unique wedding dress choices, but also some more traditional eco-friendly wedding gown choices too. Such as the Grace dress (seen above) which features a scoop bodice with an open back. The gown is hand-crafted with an eco-friendly blend of hemp/silk.

Other places to look…

Annatarian: amazing custom work on wedding gowns.
Olivia Luca: Custom create your own eco-gown.
Adele Wechsler: AMAZING GOWNS. In fact I’ll say it twice – AMAZING. The gowns here will make you swoon then faint.
Rawganique: Organic hemp wedding attire for bride and groom plus the wedding party.
Deborah Lindquist: Carries a unique but still traditional green wedding line.
Morgan Boszilkov’s Natural Bridal Collection: Not entirely traditional, but sort of tradition with flare.

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Unique Sustainable Wooden Wedding Invitation

Jennifer — Sun, 24 May 2009 20:03:53 +0000

I know I talk about Night Owl Paper Goods all the time here, but being that I love them, and being that it’s green wedding month here at THF, I can’t NOT post their amazing eco-birch wedding invites, reply cards, and party invites.

zinnia • lavender wedding or party invitation

The eco-wedding line at Night Owl Paper Goods is beautiful, unique, and will kick your green wedding off right. The wedding line of products are made of eco-friendly sustainably harvested yellow birch wood. The wood grain varies, which means your invites will be super unique & lovely. Wedding cards includes custom text, or a fill-in section (yes, you can write on this wood), and outer envelope.

squirrel vows • golden pecan save the date postcard

Shown above:

Pricing is the only downside of these cards. Being so unique they go for $3 to $6 each, so I’m guessing these are MUCH better for a small eco-wedding. If you’ve got the budget though, these are simply the coolest material cards for a green wedding you can get. If going with touchable cards is not your deal check out:

Visit Night Owl Paper Goods to learn more.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Casual Green Wedding Dresses & Wedding Party Dresses

Jennifer — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:00:07 +0000

If you’re not interested in going nuts with a big fat gown for you and the other ladies in your wedding party, you can check out the goods at various eco-friendly shops and find something casual. Following are some great dresses that would be perfect for a casual eco-friendly wedding party.

Such as…

Bamboo Tiki Dress – at just $69 a pop, this 100% bamboo dress is pretty and inexpensive enough for your entire line up of wedding gals. The dress is from Sweetgrass Natural Fibers who carries products made in the U.S.A. from fabrics and fibers grown without any harmful chemical fertilizers or pesticides. They specialize in eco fashion made from hemp , bamboo and organic cotton. Simple, nice lines, and eco-friendly. PLUS this dress is available in a multitude of colors so you can match to your own scheme.

The Hoss Dress from Adili is beautiful and simple, made with sustainable soya jersey. I love the pink, but it also comes in jade.

BTC Elements has two good wedding picks – the Reversible Halter Dress – an owl neck halter that reverses for two dresses in one. Rich shimmery teal on one side, with a more casual silvery beige on the other. Handmade in Portland, Oregon out of reclaimed vintage Japanese qina nylon. I also like the Afternoon Latte Dress for a green wedding with vintage theme. Fashioned from reclaimed and secondhand fabric.

Personally, if I was getting married Posh Girl Vintage would be my first stop for dresses. The perks include vintage (reuse – very green) and lovely dresses of every type. There’s always something amazing at their shop. The downside with vintage is of course, you have to jump on it, and there’s a chance of an eclectic wedding party because odds are, none of your dresses are going to match. Also with vintage be aware that there could be some flaws. Posh Girl adjusts their price for flaws (cool beans) but you may need to alter the dress you choose.

However, if eclectic or non-fussy (i.e. non-matching) is your game this is your dream dress shop. I picked four current favorites that would work for a wedding. I picked mostly traditional colors, but note that their inventory changes often and that they have dresses in every color under the sun. PS the best thing about shopping at Posh Girl Vintage is that they’re very elaborate in their descriptions. If there’s fabric to let out, they let you know, if the dress is less than perfect they tell you. It’s an amazing shop!

Dresses shown above include…

Are you getting married soon? Would you go with a casual dress or do you want the whole nine yards sort of gown?

Coming up later, some more traditional minded green wedding dresses.

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Green Wedding Round Up

Jennifer — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:00:44 +0000

This being the last day of June, we’re closing out our green wedding feature. In case you missed something essential, I rounded up all the posts we did so far related to green weddings. I also made this green wedding guide a permanent fixture in our sidebar page section (to your right). Although green wedding month is over, as we do other posts that relate, we’ll be adding to the sidebar guide.

Here’s what we covered in May…

Basics:

Green Wedding Planner: Helpful Links for Wedding Planning

Announcements & Invitations:

Wedding Dresses, Wedding Party Clothing & Accessories:

Cake:

Food & Beverages:

Gifts:

Special Touches:

Extreme Green Weddings:

I hope you enjoyed this special feature – we sure did. Don’t forget to look for a new feature in June.

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Quick Green Wedding Tips: More Wedding Cake Ideas

Jennifer — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:00:31 +0000

You know, for someone who claims to have nothing to say about wedding cakes, I sure have a lot to say about them. We’re wrapping up green wedding month tomorrow though; so of course all these ideas are popping into my head tonight.

These are a few random tips I was thinking about.

Before I mentioned you could have edible cake toppers – a very green choice. However, I forgot to mention that you could go ahead and make them yourself. We have a post here on making candied flowers, and Linette, over at Mother Earth’s Garden has another option for creating candy violets.

Then I was thinking that one budget idea for green weddings is this – make cupcakes. Actually wedding cupcake cakes have become very popular, and there’s no limit to how you could decorate them. Cupcakes are a winner too, because no dishes are necessary. Linette (yes, again) has some Simple Summer Cupcakes you might like. Cupcakes can be any old flavor you choose too – here are some organic flavor ideas.

Other great links for ideas:

Bridal Shower Cake Ideas (also, by the way from Linette – she’s too smart for her own good.)

Marye at Baking Delights did an entire amazing series on making your own wedding cake – from choosing the shape, to cake flavors to assembly; plus some wedding food ideas. To read all about it see: Weddings: Cakes, Foods, Favors. Remember, any cake can be made with organic ingredients.

Ok, let’s hope I’m done with the cake ideas. Geez.

[image via stock.xchng]

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Green Wedding Cake Ideas

Jennifer — Sat, 31 May 2008 04:47:30 +0000

Ok, so I lied in the last post about not having jack to say about wedding cakes. Mainly because I totally forgot about this amazing cake site that I’ve had bookmarked for ages.

If you need a picture to take to your baker, and you want something with a natural theme then I’d visit Wildflowers – one of the most beautiful cake shop in the world (IMO). Not just cakes either. Wildflowers creates amazing baskets filled to the brim with sugar flowers, leaves, berries, and more.

Individuals in New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland can order cakes from Wildflowers, but outside of the area, you can still order custom toppers or a collection of flowers for your wedding. And believe me, you’ll want to after you see these cakes. Or rather works of art. Wildflowers creates both Wedding Cakes, Special Occasion Cakes, and Garden Cakes, and most would work for a natural themed wedding.

Here are just a few examples of these beautiful cakes…

Bride Magazine named the cake below as one of America’s 50 most beautiful cakes in 2008 – not very surprising.

Fall Apple Basket for an autumn wedding table. Beautiful sugar work.

Lilacs! My favorite – this was a birthday basket, but it could so be in a summer wedding.

I’m not sure how you could slice into this lavender and lilac watercolor wedding cake – seriously. It’s so pretty.

I have to say if I ever have a wedding, I’d have to get some sugar flowers from Wildflowers. Or heck, maybe skip the wedding, and just get a cake.

To learn more about these wonderful cakes visit Wildflowers.

[images via Wildflowers]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Green Wedding Idea: Wedding Cake Toppers

Jennifer — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:26:56 +0000

I wanted to do a green wedding post regarding wedding cakes this month, for our green wedding feature. But after thinking about it, what can I say?

Go organic.

There; two words. That’s not a post. When it comes to the cake, you’ll simply have to make it, or have it made, with organic ingredients. If you have it made, you’ll simply need to search out a local bakery that will go organic.

Since cakes are out, I thought hey, let’s look at cake toppers!

Your best bets for green cake toppers include:

Seek out a company that makes eco toppers (rare).
Buy something for a topper that you’ll love to look at forever, not simply store away.
Make it yourself out of green or recycled materials.
Use fresh flowers or herbs, leaves, etc., only – stuff that will compost.
Use candy. Eat the topper.
Have pie instead

Here are some ideas:

Robot Bride and Groom Wedding Cake Topper Wood Statues with Base – this is too cute and unique. You could keep this out and look at it all year. More choices available.

Adorable bird cake toppers – made with mostly vintage and antique fabrics and garments. Currently artist Ann Wood is out of these toppers, but if you sign up on her mailing list, you can learn when more are coming. Go see all of the different styles she’s made!

Max Kitano of Sugarworks, LLC was making amazing sugar art that would look fabulous on a cake. I wrote about his work at another blog of mine, and he actually sent me one of his sugar Origami Cranes and it was beautiful – it looked just like glass. Now to save breaking he’s using casting resin, for wedding cranes, which makes his cranes break proof, and thus not stress inducing if you’re getting married. These resin cranes last forever, and are perfect for a cake topper and available in all sorts of color choices. Actually, Sugarworks offers an entire page of wedding favors as well.

DIY Cake Topper – cutest topper ever! Made partially with scraps from the bride’s dress alteration. I LOVE these. Click the image to see the entire topper.

Do you have any other ideas?

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

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Eco Friendly Paper for Your Green Wedding

Jennifer — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:30:21 +0000

If you truly want the ultimate green wedding, don’t bother reading this post. Instead skip back and read:

It’s tough to justify paper, even eco-friendly paper, when there are better, no paper ways to go. However, this is your wedding, and your day, so if you want paper, I’m bringing in some options you can use for invites, thank-you cards, save-the-date cards, and more. The following papers will work beautifully for your wedding needs, while allowing you to still be green.

The basic thing you’re looking for is recycled paper and, or paper that can maybe be put to another use. One other idea is to make your own homemade paper. This could be a really fun sort of pre-wedding get-together. Grab some pals, or your future spouse, some tasty treats for the gang, and spend one nice day making paper. Fun, earth-friendly, and totally custom and unique.

Perfect paper products for a green wedding:

A HUGE selection of beautiful tree-free and post consumer recycled papers for eco wedding invitations from Invitesite. From Invitesite: “These invitations are sold as DIY kits that you can print desktop or we can print for you. (we print in-house with vegetable based inks)” You can read their Eco Policies and Green Practices as well.
Here are three lovely examples from Invitesite but you won’t believe all the colors and ideas available – tons to see.

Angelicia Wedding Invitation – perfect for autumn weddings.

Coco – I LOVE this one.

Sol – very different colors, but great for a modern wedding or maybe one in the heat of summer.

Plantable Seeded Wrapping Paper from Bloom

Seal and Send

Tasha Rae Designs has some absolutely beautiful wedding designs going on – not all the invites at this site are eco-friendly, but you can have anything switched to eco-friendly papers. One note, it was tough to find the eco content for this shop. If you’re interested in how green the papers are, you need to scroll down on this page to the bottom. Green aspects won’t come up if you click on the invite itself.

baron*cards

Botanical Paperworks

There are plenty of earth friendly paper companies around now. Check Co-op America’s listing for stationary and tree-free papers. Just be sure to read each site carefully. “Earth Friendly” at one shop may mean 20% recycled content, and 100% tree-free at another.
Do you have some other ideas?

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Green Wedding Planner: Helpful Links for Wedding Planning

Jennifer — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:00:05 +0000

All May we’ve been talking about green weddings. In June, of course, we’ll be focusing on another feature, but good news – here at b5 we’re not the only blog talking weddings though.

We have a wedding planning blog here at b5 – Our One Heart, and although, the ideas are not green exclusive, you can draw ideas from the blog, and adapt them to your choosing. Then we also have Marriage Actually – a fun read written by Cory and Kerri. And yes, they’re an actual married couple. Now you can see what life might be like after the big event.

We also have an extensive travel section here at b5 where you can learn about place to go on your honeymoon. Some examples:

Then there’s She Knows Parties. This blog is written by two of my favorite bloggers and covers a wide range of topics that will interest anyone getting married.

Should You Hire a Party Planner?
5 Things You Will Need for Any Type of Party
Should You Have an Engagement Party?
Simple Summer Cupcakes
Lighted Punch Fountain
Party Punch Decorative Ice Ring – with little flowers and the right ice mold shape, it’s perfect for a wedding!
Adventure Bachelor Party – Stepping Away from the Traditional Route
And more – visit for plenty of party helpful ideas.

Now you know where to go when our wedding feature is over, and you’re having withdrawals.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

[image via stock.xchng]

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Planning an Organic or Vegetarian Wedding Menu?

Jennifer — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:00:39 +0000

Part of any good green wedding is of course the food. However, food is not so much my thing. I can cook when I want, but I’m pretty dull, and your wedding deserves more creativity than brown rice and raw broccoli. That said, I’ve gathered up some links and ideas that can help you to plan your green wedding food.

Oh, and we’ll discuss cake and wine later.

Planning a Vegetarian Wedding

UK organic caterer search

Co-op America’s organic food providers

‘Green’ Wedding Ideas: Your Menu

San Francisco based, Work of Art has a cool sample menu for an Organic and Sustainable Cocktail Dinner you can look at for ideas.

Find a green marketplace for DIY food.

Vegetarian sample wedding menu

Sample vegan and vegetarian menu ideas

Eco-friendly Catering for your Wedding or Special Event

Whole Foods, other natural food grocers, and many co-ops have party platters available, from simple to full score meals. Of course you’ll also want to check with local caterers; even if they don’t say they’re organic, they may be able to prepare a fully organic spread.

Feel free to add your idea in the comments.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family