Our Invitations Are Out
So the reviews are in. My friends and family have all recieved their invitations and since then, I have heard from many of them. It makes me really happy every time some one tells me how beautiful they are or how “Beth and Steven - like” they are.
The invitation are handmade by artisans in Nepal with tree-free paper. The invitations have an outer wrapper and then inserts in the inside with the wedding details. In Nepal, when someone sends one of these invitations, people save the outer wrapper and reuse it for another card. The more times a card is sent, the more valuable that card becomes. .
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One Month To Go
My own wedding is in a month. It has been an interesting journey to sort out what is important for me to have as a component of my wedding. There are so many competing voices that make their opinions known during the wedding planning process. For me my mother and my opinionated sisters definitely have a lot to say. My fiancé’s family also has strong opinions, not to mention my fiancé himself. Then there is the more amorphous voice – the voice that you hear when you open a bridal magazine. That disembodied voice tells you what the “perfect wedding” is supposed to be like. My fiancé and I started out with the intention that we wanted to celebrate our marriage with our friends and family. Once you we started talking to vendors and attempting to manage all the competing messages that you are hearing from friends, family, and society, its amazing how complicated our original intention can sometimes seem. Planning a Zebra Crossings wedding has been a great way for me to stay grounded. While many parts of a wedding may seem frivolous to me, I feel good that our invitations are helping out Nepalese artisans or that our place names are helping out street children in Rwanda. One month to go … I keep you posted on how it turns out.
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Ending the White Monopoly
I did something kind of shocking the other day. I bought a wedding dress that is not white, ivory, cream, or any other shade of white you could imagine. I don’t want to disclose too many details of the dress (my fiance hasn’t seen my dress yet). The dress is made of a fabric that is one of my favorite colors, though. I went dress shopping with mom and we had tried on a lot of white dresses. The dresses were pretty, but somehow didn’t make me feel like myself. When I tried this dress on at the Brides Against Breast Cancer Event, it just felt like me. I’ll be sure to post a picture after my wedding.
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Moving Forward
We plan to launch our new site this summer. In the meantime, we are pursuing different opportunties to figure out how to help Zebra Crossings grow. We were recently chosen as an Echoing Green semifinalist. Keep your fingers
crossed for us that we will make through the next round.
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The NY Times has an article today on Ray Anderson, a resident of Highlands, NC, who cut his carpet company’s fossil fuel use by 45%, water use by over 60%, and landfill use by 80%. At the same time that costs have gone down (savings of over $300 million over 10 years), sales have gone up. It’s an inspiring read not just for the numbers, but as a look at a person who believes fully in the capacity of industry to make the bottom line and environmentalism not just compatible, but indispensable.
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Brides Against Breast Cancer
Are you looking for a way to find an affordable wedding gown while contributing to a good cause? You may be able to find your perfect dress at a Brides Against Breast Cancer event sponsored by the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation. Making Memories offers thousands of used and new dresses for sale at two-day events in thirty-two locations across the country. Proceeds from the sales go towards making wishes and dreams come true for women and men diagnosed with terminal cancer. I just bought my own wedding dress there. Not only was the dress a bargain, but I felt great about the money for the dress going to a good cause. Check out their events listing to find out when a Brides Against Breast Cancer event will be happening near you.
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The Three “R”s of Wedded Bliss
The Green Guide has an article on incorporating “the three Rs” — reducing, reusing, and recycling — into your wedding. Although it doesn’t discuss fair trade specifically, it does offer some advice on how to make a wedding more eco-friendly, such as using one venue for the wedding and reception (saves gas) and trying to buy local as often as possible (e.g., flowers, food). The article got me thinking about some eco-friendly things I’ve seen at some of my friends’ weddings. My favorite by far was a little sign on the table announcing the bride and groom’s donation to a favorite charity in lieu of wedding favors. I always lose the favors anyway!
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Are you looking to have an eco-friendly wedding? Do you want to learn more about reducing the carbon footprint of your wedding or where to register for eco-friendly gifts? You should be sure to check out Portovert. Portovert is a magazine featuring articles of interest to eco-savvy brides and grooms. It also has a great directory of vendors who offer a variety of eco-friendly services.
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A Green Wedding Hits the Soaps
Sami & Lucas, a newly betrothed couple on Days of Our Lives, made their nuptials “green.” Kudos for some of the features, like giving guests seeds to plant at their homes and using potted plants (to be replanted) for flowers. I’m not sure that a silk dress qualifies as “green,” although the show’s website boasts that the decadent gown is made of natural fibers. Green-ness aside, it is beautiful.
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Green Wedding Ideas
The momentum behind green weddings seem to be growing. This week the New York Times published an article entitled, “How Green Was My Wedding.” One of the bride’s featured in the article reflected that:
“It’s well worth it to start your life together in a way that’s in line with your values and beliefs,” said Ms. Harrison, 28, a graduate student at Yale, who is to marry in October. “You don’t want this event that is supposed to start your life together to come at the expense of the environment or workers in another country.”
Check out the article for some more ideas about how you can make your wedding green.
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