Natural ideas for a green wedding

1. These kraft brown labels are perfect to label gifts or favours for your guests.
2. Stylish sustainable, untreated, ethically made, Chinese white pine cones can be personalised and filled with anything from confetti to food.
3. Think of all the ways you can use this woven ribbon to help express your love - long heart & live, laugh, love.
4. Beeswax candles are free from petroleum products and chemicals, so all you breathe in is pure, natural vapour.
5. Hang this rustic Mr & Mrs bunting from the back of the bride and groom's chairs.
6. Use the click & stamp set to personalise your wedding decor.
7. Use the click & stamp set to personalise your sustainable wood cutlery.
8. Decorate to your hearts content with this colourful cotton bakers twine.
9. Use the don't forget - sticky notes to help remember what's next in the wedding plans.

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Ombre is the new black this wedding season!

Ombre is a french term meaning "shaded" where you mix similar colours graduating from light to dark or vice versa. 

Use varied tones of the same colour bridesmaid dress to include ombre in your natural wedding style. 

We love that you can naturally achieve ombre style using heirloom tomatoes graduating from orange, red and green or use dried flower heads in similar shades of yellows, reds and orange to create an ombre effect. 

Ice provides an ombre effect when boozie pink lemonade is served in Mason jars with daisy cut lids and the retro striped straws. 

This ombre flower curtain makes the perfect backdrop for a natural wedding ceremony!

Don't forget the cake! Consider a Vegan Wedding Cake to reduce your environmental impact!

For more natural wedding styling tips LIKE our Facebook Page   

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Five Ways to Make your Wedding Eco Friendly

Save money and reduce your impact on our precious planet by planning a your wedding with the environment in mind! Here is our top five ways to make sure your wedding is eco friendly plus some essential bride resources to help you plan the perfect green wedding as you go.  

DIY as much as possible

OK so you may not have time or the creativity to make the wedding favours or decorations yourself, and that is why etsy has become so popular, but if you are the type who loves to cut, paste, arrange and create then an eco style wedding will be perfect for you.

The key to stress-free handmade creations is to ensure you plan the decorations early in the piece. They often take more time than you think, and tend to become stressful and unsuccessful when made under pressure!

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

To reduce is one of main principles of sustainability. When you are planning your decorations, invitations, wedding dress, floral arrangements, catering, transportation and even your wedding and engagement rings think about re-using as much as you possibly can. You will find so much inspiration on sites like Pinterest for unique ways to re-use things like  milk bottles or Ball mason jars for vases and drinks.

Remember to recycle as much as you possibly can to avoid landfill. If you have ever been involved in a wedding you’ll know what an impact it can have on the environment. Everything from paper products to transport to food all begin to add up in the days leading to the big event and on the day itself.
Compost the food scraps by using a Bokashi bin. Use compostable plates to lessen the amount going to landfill. Give away your re-cycled glass vases and drink vessels as wedding favours. Think about everything you are using and how it can be re-used after the festivities. One couple I know used strips of long hessian fabric as their table runners and then re-used them as a weed barrier in their veggie garden.

What about choosing a pre-loved wedding dress? There is such a diverse range of pre-loved wedding gowns, bridesmaids dresses, formal wear, flower girls and page boy outfits and accessories as well as mother of the bride dresses available now days, you've got to ask yourself if it's worth spending such a large portion of your budget on your wedding attire when you only wear it once. Take a look at what's on offer before you make a decision on what you will wear. Once the ceremony is over, you can re-sell it again for another thrifty eco-bride to wear.

Go Local 

Ask your caterer where they source their fresh produce from. If they are an organic catering company chances are they buy local, and local is always best for the environment. It's also a good idea to think about where your beer and wine are coming from. There are so many local craft breweries and organic vineyards these days that it's easy to provide your guests with the best varieties on offer. We provide a list of organic beer and wine on natural weddings to help you find your local suppliers.

Making your own floral bouquets from local growers is easy by visiting the flower markets in your area, or simply ask your green thumbed friends and neighbors if you can buy or pick from their gardens. Keeping it simple is the key to natural wedding flowers these days.

Vegan and Organic is Always Best!

You may not be vegan or even vegetarian, but choosing a menu without any animal products is key to reducing your environmental footprint. Of course you will come up against the usual complaints of 'where's the meat' but if you find a good organic vegetarian caterer, chances are no-one will even notice it's missing. At least try to incorporate some vegetarian meals into the menu. Don't forget about the cake, it too can be a vegan wedding cake without anyone noticing. Make an appointment for a taste test before you rule it out as a possibility.

Ask for Help

Be creative and think out of the box when choosing the style for your natural green wedding and utilize students, friends and family members for their unique skills! Just remember when you are asking friends and family for their assistance, it is important to share the jobs around so that no one person is over-worked to the extent that they don’t enjoy the festivities. Use your imagination and don’t underestimate their crafty talents. 

You can use local high school students for your ceremony music, hold crafting parties to create the wedding decorations, and ask your guests to Instagram your wedding. Friends and family usually love to be involved in making your day extra special. You'll find the more memorable details are not always the expensive ones. 

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Wedding lanterns can help set the scene for your natural wedding.

Give your wedding reception a romantic look with natural paper wedding lanterns. 

The heart patterns shining through these paper lanterns (paper-bag luminaries illuminated by votive candles) provide a natural touch when you group your wedding lanterns in different sizes on the guest-book table or dinner tables for a beautiful, glowing display.  Set the beeswax candles in heavy round glass votive holders to help anchor the bags and prevent any accidents.

At Biome Eco Stores we have a lovely selection of wedding lanterns to help set a natural theme.

Choose from the following styles: 

Set the scene with these just married paper votive kits

Your guests will know they have arrived with these WELCOME paper votive kits

Square paper hurricane luminary - hearts in small or large

Add flowers to create a natural paper vase with these square paper hurricane luminary - set of 3

Japanese-style luminary candle bags in sets of 2 provide a rustic look

Don't forget to use Beeswax candles as they are carbon neutral!

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vintage finds make a good eco theme

When choosing your decor, be open minded. You may find some unusual things that you would never have thought of using, but with a little imagination, they show themselves to be the perfect accessory.

These wooden spools that were used to spin silk in a previous life will add a touch of vintage charm to your wedding decor when some beeswax candles are added. 

Add some number cards to these vintage bobbins for table numbers.

Simply pick some wild flowers for these delightful glass jars tied with jute twine and your guests will be talking about your 'darling centerpieces' for years to come.

It just takes a little imagination but our favourite eco store has done the hard work by sourcing these vintage gems for you. Take a look at Biome's green wedding page for some truly inspirational vintage wedding decor ideas.

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Eco wedding – pure beeswax candles

Thank you to Cate at QueenB for sharing this lovely post on lighting up your wedding naturally with  beeswax candles.

We’re pretty spoiled for choice on things to write about at Queen B, but I have to say that one of my greatest delights is when our customers share photographs with us of their events and we can see our hand-crafted beauties doing their thing.

It’s one thing to use candles at a wedding or event, it is another thing entirely to use completely natural beeswax candles with their unique golden light (not to mention that your guests don’t have to breathe in toxic fumes all night)… that simple choice will not just create a special ambiance  but you’re also supporting bees, our beekeepers, the regional communities they live in, jobs at Queen B… not to mention the environment and planet!  One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.  Wedding… becomes eco wedding… luxury wedding… different… special!

While my raison d’étre may be hand-crafting natural, non-toxic, carbon neutral, eco candlelight, we are fortunate that our candles appeal just as much to the luxury end of the market as they do to the conscious or eco consumer… not that they’re mutually exclusive!
Anyway, I thought it might be nice to share some of the photographs from events we’ve lit.  A picture speaks a thousands words (and, often, so do I!).  These photographs are from a wedding held at The Wharf in Sydney.  Flowers by

For this wedding, the candles were used in two ways:

• Ambience – rising to the challenge of creating a warm, romantic, intimate ambience in a huge warehouse space, our 8-9hr tealight candles were placed in mini-fishbowls at each guest’s place setting and dotted along the windowsill around the venue.  NB putting candles into a glass not only provides wind protection but the glass reflects more light… giving you more bang for your hard earned buck.
• Queen B beeswax tealight candles at each guest’s place and dotted along the windowsill of the venue Queen B pure beeswax 8-9hr tealight candles are the longest burning tealights on the market… so the ambience goes on and on.

The sea of beeswax candles created a lovely light feature table for this eco luxury wedding created a beautiful impact

Create a sea of beeswax candlelight with the clever use of fishbowls, hurricanes, plinths, tealight holders, votive glasses etc
Creating a candle feature at your eco wedding or event is a high impact way of creating instant ambiance 

A sea of candlelight feature table – our bride wanted to create a sea of candles as a feature at the event.  This was cleverly achieved on a budget by using large fishbowls, glass plinths, tealight holders and votive holders along with various sizes of candles to create the look.  The flickering of the flames reflecting off the glass holders of different sizes and shapes created the look of hundreds of candle flames.

A few tips for creating this look:

• most good florists will have glassware that they can lend/hire to you for the evening rather than purchasing it.
• if you’re having an event at home or not using a florist for your event, hire glasses (lowballs or highballs) as another cheap way of creating this look without breaking the bank
• otherwise, most thrift stores have a huge range of glassware for sale… I’ve lit an event before where I bought over 150 glasses for 50c each and then dropped them back the next day.  That’s a win win!  And the different sizes, shapes and heights of the glasses create a beautiful look… if that’s the look you’re going for!… it’s not the luxury eco wedding look, but it is a lovely look!

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Green event

Planning a natural wedding or green event is not only about responsibility to the environment, it’s also about love. Your love for each other, your love for family and friends and your love for the Earth. Your wedding is a great opportunity to affect your extended family and friends by making earth conscious decisions that enhance the natural beauty of the setting. 

Just as we have an impact on the environment in which we live, the environment also has an impact on us. In nature we experience the beauty and organic wildness of the earth, which has a measurably positive effect on our psychological and physical well-being when we cater a green event. 

photo credit: Jose Villa

 Save time, resources and money by finding a vendor you can hire your natural touches from, for your green event.

you can hire these and many more pre-loved items from lovestruckweddings.com.au for your green event.

Make your own decorations from materials that you already have around the house. Ask friends and family to donate fabrics that fit your theme. They'll love to see their old dress hanging as bunting on the day of your green event.

 Or you can find lots of hand made decorations on etsy.com like these beer can stars for your green event.

Ask your friends and family for Earth friendly gifts that are useful to you by registering for your 

eco friendly gifts at biome.com.au 

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Moss in hessian wrapped pot wedding favour

Photo and text from Santa Barbara Chic

...having an eco friendly wedding can be beneficial for both the environment and your budget. The multicolored vases on the table are all recycled glass.  To accomplish something similar, you could either collect vases from friends and family or search ebay and local flea markets for used vases within your budget.  The favors are individual pots full of moss, which you can buy in sheets for a very low price at your local nursery.  Plus, they are something that your guests can keep to be reminded of your wedding day!

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Recycled paper green wedding decorations

All images & designs in this post are copyright to Live & Lovely and can not be reproduced.

Introducing gorgeous recycled paper green wedding decorations by Live and Lovely Australia.  Live and Lovely offers a range of beautiful, quality products carefully selected to feature all natural ingredients, locally produced or featuring recycled or salvaged materials.

The decorations are made entirely out of salvaged materials (ie materials which would otherwise go to waste), primarily old magazines, newspapers, off cuts of pearl card, tulle scraps from wedding dress making, glass beads from old jewellery and even old sheet music. This means the decorations can be quite unique. They are completely handmade to order by local artists, making them sustainable from both an environmental and social point of view.

The range includes: Japanese style paper flower brooches that can also be used for table decorations, or made as hair clips, shoeclips, choker or wrist bands and is now also available as a bridal bouquet (together with salvaged glass beads!)

 

Paper cranes as individual table decorations or in a hanging string. Cranes are considered very auspicious in Japanese culture and paper cranes are often an integral part of wedding decoration. Our paper cranes are made from old magazines or old sheet music for 2 very different effects.

Card and tulle flowers on a string with glass beads. These romantic strings of decorations are a great alternative to balloons and look lovely blowing the breeze. For added effect, each flower can have special words or quotes or even your wedding vows added, and then hung in the breeze sending those messages to heaven, as Buddhist prayer flags are believed to do.

Visit Natural Weddings resource directory for more green wedding inspiration.

If you are looking for the best water bottle, visit Biome in Brisbane for a wide range of drink bottles, glass water bottles, stainless steel, leak proof and BPA free water bottles. 

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Green Christmas theme for a green wedding

A beautiful way to celebrate your wedding at Christmas time is to make it a green and red event - and of course "green" would mean eco friendly.

There are plenty of ideas for planning a green wedding on the Natural Weddings directory.

And why not decorate the green event with fair trade green Christmas decorations and felt garlands, use Christmas tags for the bombenierre and small green Christmas trees decorated with red hearts for the table centrepieces.

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