ethicalweddings.com

While it’s not an especially ethical wedding question, we do get a fair few emails asking about where you’re allowed to get married.  It often seems hugely complicated for something that you’d expect to be quite simple! (Read some of our ‘Where can I get married?’ questions and answers)

So I was thrilled to read this post on NewlyWeds-UK by my favourite green vicar and Ethical Weddings expert, Jan Harney about churches in England relaxing the rules a little in recognition of the fact that we all move about rather a lot these days - and the place we’re living might not be the place we call home… over to Jan:

“The new Marriage Measure was passed and will come into force on October 1st. This means that you will not only be able to marry in your local church, but any church to which you have a significant link. This can be a place where you were baptised or confirmed, where parents or grandparents were married or one in which you have been a parishioner for 6 months at some stage in your life, whether you attended church or not.

This is great news - especially for those of you who live in London but want to marry in the place you consider to be home. We can’t actually book weddings in anticipation so hold fire till October and then your Vicar will be able to accommodate you.” Read the original post.

If you’re trying to find the perfect place to wed, why not take a look at some of these posts in our Forum to get some ideas or help out your fellow brides and grooms…

Night time outdoor wedding

Ethical venues in West Wales

Outside humanist wedding

Happy planning!

Katie

I thought I’d get a bit of debate going today - although how much of a debate I’m going to get on this issue from Ethical Weddings readers I’m not sure!

An ethical bride-to-be on a budget and in a hurry emailed us to ask for our thoughts on the etiquette of sending email wedding invites. Here’s the original question followed by Ethical Weddings’ reply and some suggestions from our blogger brides.

We’d love to find out what you think. Does etiquette rule in this scenario or is email the obvious way forward? Maybe you’ve created your own gorgeous wedding e-vites - if you have, we’d love to see them. Send them in to info@ethicalweddings.com and we can create a little gallery of them to inspire other online brides!

The question - to email or not to email?

We have decided to get married in 2 months. We are only asking our closest family members and friends to attend. Would it be acceptable to email their invitations to our little celebration? We thought we would send a formal invitation and RSVP through an attachment.

Ethical Weddings’ response

As far as we are concerned, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sending email invites - providing of course that you can be sure your guests will receive them. You could always follow up with a phone call to make sure.

If you’re looking at websites that give instructions about wedding etiquette, they’ll probably tell you it’s not the proper way to do things, that it isn’t formal enough… but this is your wedding and if you’re helping to save a few trees (and be more efficient at the same time), we think that can only be applauded.

Are you confident in creating a beautiful e-invite? If not, you might like to look into getting a designer to create one for you. Ethical Weddings website designers, Make Hay had some lovely designs for their wedding, for example, which would work on paper or by email.

Alternatively, you could go to a do-it-yourself site such as evite.com - see their wedding invites

We have a couple of posts on our blog about email invites that it might be useful for you to look through first:

Internet Invites

Invites & Wedding Maps

We also asked our blogger brides for their thoughts and here’s what they had to say:

Jenny’s response - email invites no problem!

“Hi there

We invited all our guests by email and many people commented that they liked our invitations! I think it’s perfectly acceptable, especially now that people understand the ‘green’ reasons for using email a bit more.

In fact we put the actual invitations on a website, and simply sent people a link by email. Each person’s link was individual, so that when they clicked on it they were sent to an invite with their own name on, where they could click to RSVP and access info about the venue.

The advantage of doing this is that the website statistics can tell you which guests have seen their invitation. If you simply email an invitation out, you don’t know whether people received it. Some people don’t check their email. And not all faulty email addresses will send you back a warning that the email ‘bounced’.

We found it took a few attempts, with some people, to find an email address where they could receive their invite. But it saved us lots of money and time - we had 200 invitations and only three, in the end, had to be sent in paper copy!

Good luck!”

Em’s response - hand made invites

“Ours is a fairly small affair at just 40 invitations going out, so I did still want to send some ‘hard copy’ invitations. Many of those we have invited are elderly and even some of the younger ones aren’t all that internet-savvy, so I tried to compromise.

I put out the equivalent of ’save the date’ by making a group on Facebook, and inviting everyone who we would reasonably like to have at the wedding. We created a wedding event, and ‘invited’ all our guests along. Several people quickly responded with ‘wish we could but..’ messages, so that enabled us to cut down the guest list to those who thought they might be able to make it.

Next, we hand made our invitations.. and it’s got to be said, it wasn’t HALF as much fun as it looks on Etsy! We enjoyed planning our design, and I enjoyed cutting the first few.. but 20 invites in, and I had lost all will to make invitations myself! I think I finally understood why the much-coveted letterpress-on-Lettra designs I had seen were super expensive.

Admittedly, we did opt for the super-economy version for our invites. I’d researched lots of eco-friendly paper, but ultimately I realised that it wasnt worth ordering fresh paper and card in when I could probably source some locally and make the most of a small amount.

I eventually bought one A3 piece of textured card, used some old note cards that I had in my correspondence set, printed with our home printer, encased it in some folded brown card (I think I bought 15 sheets of A4 from a local shop where they had been gathering dust) and packaged it up with some handmade paper from a local shop.

It didn’t fit my ideal of the super eco-friendly, ethical invite, but I know that it used minimal resources and we were vaguely happy with the results!

I still have a couple of friends overseas who I haven’t offically invited yet, and I’ve come to the realisation there is a much better way around it. Using Adobe’s In-Design program (which I am very much a beginner at!), we can create a PDF invitation with clickable links and all the inserts we wanted to include.

I’m going to put our original invite design in there, and add on some local accommodation info and maps… and probably wind up emailing it to many of the people we sent the original one to anyway!

If I was to do it again (oh hang on, I will, back in Australia!), I’d create a PDF invite using In-Design, and only print it for the few people who aren’t online.”

Kate’s response - postcard invites

“We sent postcard invitations - I ordered them from a photo website, with a photo I’d chosen on one side and the invitation wording on the other. All I had to do then was address and stick a stamp on each one.

The postcards had a link to a website we’d designed and created, which had all the details on it, plus a form to RSVP.

The only reason I didn’t send an email instead was that there were quite a few guests who don’t really use email.

We’ve had lots of positive comments about the website - including a few from friends who said they wish they’d done something similar for their wedding.

For those who had no internet access at all, we printed the web pages out and sent them with their invite so that they had all the info.”

Why not carry on the debate about email and paper invites in the Ethical Weddings Forum?

Take care,

Katie
Ethical Weddings

This week Natural Collection are here to tell us all about their long-running and award-winning ethical online business, which now offers the ethical bride and groom a gorgeous green wedding gift list…

Tell us a bit about yourselves and the business:
The company was formed in 1999 by Joanne & Julian Spector with a vision to create a distribution platform to support sustainable innovation and ideas.

By offering a wide selection of ecologically considered products and services we hope to reach as wide an audience as possible.

In this way, we hope to demonstrate that the basic power of consumer choice can make commercially viable a growing range of top quality ecological products, even within a competitive and well established market place; products which use modern technology to harness nature’s benefits without exploiting her resources; products which can represent our 21st Century vision where trade is fair and poverty is alleviated through sustainable income generation; and ultimately and ideally, products where holistic consideration stretches right from their inception through their manufacturing process, to the benefit for the end user and eventually to their recyclability and/or bio-degradability.

We work with renowned environmental expert Edwin Datchefski, who has been consulting on product design and sustainability since 1994. Edwin independently assesses all products against our carefully considered criteria: Eco, Organic, Fair and Sustainable Trade, Natural Living and Well Being. You can read more about these on our website in our 5 Dot Guides and in our ‘About Us’ sections.

We are the UK’s leading non-food ecological retailer and are proud to be the official catalogue for Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Trees for Life, Out of This World, The Vegetarian Society, Compassion in World Farming and the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

Thus far we have raised and contributed over £300,000 for environmental and other worthy causes.

Through our constant research and analysis of market viability and ecological criteria, we update many suppliers about the use of better environmental materials and the importance of careful sourcing from ingredients to base materials and the best use of innovative eco-alternatives for product manufacture.

• We have watched niche specialist alternative suppliers whom we have nurtured and supported become accepted into mainstream retailers.
• When few people were aware of the toxicity of NiCad batteries we were convincing suppliers to change them to NiMH
• Before it was widely recognised that PVC was a pollutant we were researching alternatives and encouraging suppliers to change their packaging and material wherever possible.
• We commissioned research into the problems created by the palm oil industry and issued documents to all our suppliers explaining Friends of the Earth’s concerns about its role in rainforest depletion
• We have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds supporting fair trade communities worldwide and have received heart-warming responses about what those purchases have meant to their communities.
• We were one of the first publications in the UK to print on post-consumer waste paper - that’s the paper we all throw away (which has greater environmental benefits than simply using off-cuts from paper mills) when sourcing such paper was difficult and expensive.
• We have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on up front purchases of organic cotton at a time when it was expensive and difficult to acquire. We have watched organic cotton change from an obscure luxury to a regular commodity in many retail outlets.

By buying in volume such a variety of products we have given many small and dedicated suppliers the confidence to produce, change specifications and continue their ecological innovations, secure in the knowledge that our volume purchasing can take their products to the market and make them viable.

We did this because ultimately we believe that as consumers we have a tremendous power to shape the future of our world. Each and every individual choice, no matter how small, can contribute to a tremendous sway towards an optimistic vision, where we continue to enjoy the benefits of our creative discoveries and inventions but at the same time, participate in a collective drive towards environmental stability and harmony with the rest of nature.

We believe that environmental awareness does not have to mean the deprivation of the benefits our modern society has grown to enjoy, but rather adds a new and exciting dimension to the definition of leading edge technology, innovative design and a vision for a new and braver world.

What or who inspires you?
The fact we can and are all making a difference. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

What do you enjoy most about running your business?
Feeling part of the solution, and not the problem, in everything we try to achieve, we are not perfect of course but every action in our business is guided by our overall philosophy of not being judgemental and in helping people take the next step along the path.

What is the most challenging aspect?
Making green more mainstream really and keeping it commercially viable so we can carry on doing what we do.

What do you feel you bring to an ethical wedding?
Our wedding list service is great stuff and our range we feel is second to none. You won’t find just anything on our site - we are more of a green John Lewis than an eco Tesco. But if you are looking for fabulous homeware, bedlinen, towels and so on then you simply must browse our range. We hope you find something to inspire…

How do you see the wedding industry changing over the next five years (if at all)?
Well the ethical choices available are clearly going to blossom across all areas of the wedding industry and that can only be a good thing.

• Stop Press: Natural Collection has just won the Observer Ethical Award for Best Online Retailer for the third year in a row!

Find out more about Natural Collection - green wedding gift lists

And if that wasn’t enough, Natural Collection have just started their super Summer Sale with up to 60% off many of their products! They’ve got some great stuff there (I’ve just been looking!) so I’d get shopping before it all goes

With just days to go before the big day, I probably shouldn’t even be taking a few minutes to write on here, but I know that if I don’t, it will be a whirlwind and a new surname away before I get around to it!

One thing that this ethical wedding journey has taught me is that the more you learn, the more you care. For a few years now, I have been concerned with ’sweat shop’ clothing and exploitation. It hadn’t wildly influenced my buying decisions, although I had started to make some of my own clothes at home, and wear more second-hand, or recycled clothing.

I started to understand that a quality garment could not make it to Australia and sell for less than AUD$5 unless the process was flawed in some way.

At the beginning of our ethical wedding adventure, I started doing some research on various fabrics. In an ideal world, I would love to find an ethical fabric which was entirely eco-friendly, but as I learned more, I discovered that every fabric has its pros and cons.

I’ll go into these in greater detail when I’ve more time (!), but NO new fabric can ever have truly good ethical credentials. No matter how pesticide free the growth, the processing involves between a bare minimum and a vast plethora of toxic chemicals. Such is life. The trick, I guess, is in somehow finding your way through to a fabric that best suits your needs, and balancing it up against its ethical credentials.

I won’t bore you with the tedious hours of fighting between organic cotton, hemp, tencel and bamboo, but the winner for me was bamboo. I love the fabric: it is delightfully soft and really does rival silk for its sheer luxuriousness. Naturally pest resistant, it usually requires no pesticide. It does however require a fairly hefty chemical treatment to process that hard wood-like grass into said soft fabric.

In an ideal world, this would be better researched, and at the absolute LEAST, guaranteed that the chemical process is a ‘closed loop’ process which recycles the chemicals and doesn’t release them. Maybe the real world isn’t so far away, as bamboo processing IS currently being researched, with a closed loop system already developed.

Aside from a real passion for alternative fabrics, I have a passion for telling others about them, and I figured our wedding day would give me a good chance to let some of our friends discover bamboo for themselves. Prior to seeing bamboo fabric for the first time, I didn’t even know it existed. I want to be able to show them the material too, and let them feel how incredibly soft it is.

I don’t think people can be pushed towards sustainable living by force. I could harp on about the poor little silkworms for hours and leave them tutting about ‘the hippie’, but if I can let them fall in love with bamboo for themselves.. well, maybe that’s half the battle already won.

I know that our wedding is about us. It will be: I think Lachie and I have been secretly delighted by how close we’ve stayed through all the pre-wedding madness. As every day goes by, I’m more and more excited to think we’re soon to be married.

So a wedding isn’t the right time for making an ethical, eco-statement. But isn’t a wedding a time to show your family and friends who you are, what you believe in together, and what your union really means? It’s in that spirit that I want people to be able to experience a more ethical wedding, and in that spirit that I intend to make sure those little ethical touches are EVERYWHERE!

Well I guess this will be it until I’m a Mrs! We’re from a close community back in Brisbane, so over the next few days, our house is going to fill to bursting point with guests.

It’s a 2 bedroom house with a good size lounge room, and at the last count, I’m expecting it to house ten people on Saturday night.. eek!

The trial run with the cake (fairtrade chocolate, homemade) takes place on Friday night, and we make the real thing on Sunday.

My outfit is half made, and I just ordered my shoes from Adili! It sounds pretty haphazard and crazy, but we wouldn’t do it any other way. How exciting!

The Proposal was a fairly lack-lustre affair. We had both been ill with a vicious flu-style bug, and off work for about two weeks. I was beginning to think I would never be well again, and if Toby whinged about feeling crap one more time I was going to kill him with my snot.

He started talking, as he often does, about having babies, to which I replied there would be no babies until a) he stopped smoking b) we were married. He thought about it for a while and then said, “so shall we get married then?” and I said, “shut up”, and he said, “no really”, and I said “shut up” and he said, “no really” and that went on for a while.

When I realised he was serious I immediately made him phone his mother and tell her so he couldn’t back out the next day. Two months later, I have a ring and we have a venue and we even have a vague date. He now claims he was delirious when he asked, but the ring: she speaks otherwise!

The ring was the first big thing we wanted to do. It was obvious to both of us there would have to be an element of ethical-ness about the proceedings, and there was no way I was going to wear a ring of dubious provenance. We wandered around the Lanes looking in windows but nothing was inspiring us. The choice was vast, but no one appeared to be doing anything even slightly right-on.

I had a part-time job in a jewellers when I was studying (ha!) for my A levels so was well aware of the waste and pollution associated with the trade. A book I read recently about the spread of AIDS in Africa had also highlighted to me that supporting the gold and diamond industry was also to support human rights abuses which are not just as simple as one man in one mine having a hard time, but which radiate throughout all of society and impact upon us all.

As we looked I became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of a whole new ring made just for me when there was so much already out there, so we started looking at second hand rings. Then I became even more uncomfortable with the price tags. It’s not that I’m tight with money, it’s just I’ve never really bought into the whole idea of retail therapy. Spending lots of money makes me really really stressed. Swapping and bargaining, on the other hand, is excellent fun.

So we were at a bit of an impasse, when my mother offered me her engagement ring from my father. They were divorced about 400 years ago, and it had been sitting in her jewellery box collecting dust since then.

It was bought in Hatton Garden some time in the 70s, so we have no way of finding out its history, but for us the balance is that we are not using any resources to create something new, or spending any money to create a demand, we are just using what is already there.

It turned out to the perfect solution. Neither of us had any worries about it being bad luck because of my parents failed marriage (is success only measured if you make it till death does you part?), it is shiny enough to appeal to my magpie-like tendencies, and it is the making of a new family heirloom which we can pass on to whichever of our children get married first. If Toby ever stops smoking, of course.

Sarah 
Rocks Magazine

This week’s featured supplier is Morgan Boszilkov who creates beautiful bridalwear from sustainable fabrics. Find out what inspires Morgan in her quest to design the perfect eco-friendly wedding gown for the green bride…

Business name: Morgan Boszilkov, Natural Bridal Collection
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Tell us a bit about yourself and your business
The Natural Bridal Collection was born from a union of my loves for fashion, everything green and everything romantic.

The gowns I design are hand-crafted locally using sustainable fabrics.

My company is committed to social and environmental responsibility and contributes 5% of profits to organizations that support the environment.

I grew up being told that I needed a “real” profession and should have an artistic hobby. So I got a business degree with a concentration in accounting. That didn’t last long.

I soon moved to Japan. I was strolling around the shopping district and met an inspiring young wedding gown designer and knew that it was my calling, my dream to do the same.

I have always been green at heart and did not find many eco-friendly and socially responsible wedding gowns available. I realized what a wonderful opportunity existed to offer elegant, luxurious, beautiful, and green wedding gowns to the modern bride.

What or who inspires you?
Nature is an incredibly inspiring force in my art and daily life. I am also inspired by my travels in Europe and Asia, by the intelligent, strong and beautiful women in my life for whom I name my dresses, and by the fabrics I use. The sustainable fabrics are gorgeous, and I enjoy sculpting and draping with them.

What do you enjoy most about running your business?
Every time someone asks me what I do, I realize that I am so lucky to be able to do what I love. The fact that my business allows me to make a positive impact on the world and its move toward a more environmentally and socially conscious place is amazing.

What is the most challenging aspect?
I am looking forward to a greater range of sustainable fabrics available and more of the supply chain becoming green and socially responsible.

What do you feel you bring to an ethical wedding?
I strive to apply green and socially responsible principles to all aspects of my business. A wedding gown is an expression of a bride’s individuality.

My gowns give the modern bride the opportunity to make a statement while looking elegant and beautiful on her very special day. I provide an eco-friendly alternative to the traditional wedding dress.

How do you see the wedding industry changing over the next five years (if at all)?
I hope to see weddings become greener and less wasteful. The events surrounding a marriage are a great opportunity to share environmentally and socially conscious ideas and values with family and friends.

Find out more about Morgan Boszilkov, Natural Bridal Collection or talk about ethical wedding dresses with other brides-to-be in the Ethical Weddings Forum.

One day back in April, a couple of months after that eventful day my partner and I decided to get married, I found myself bidding on a pink vintage dress on Ebay to wear at a friend’s wedding.

A bit broke and stuck for ideas, E-bay was really a last resort. Despite being a fervent charity shop rummager, I’d never before bought clothes on E-bay. However, when the dress arrived in the post, I was overjoyed. It fitted perfectly, was in great condition and, best of all, the chances of someone else wearing the same dress at the wedding are minimal (I’m careful now since a friend told me the horror story of when she turned up to a wedding in the same Coast outfit as another wedding-goer).

My dress - made by a well-known 70s high street store - still looks as good as it did back then and I was the happy recipient of lots of compliments on the day of the wedding.

Give a wedding dress a second chance

After my friend’s wedding, I casually started browsing E-bay to look at wedding dresses for my big day in 2009. Again, keen to save money if I can, I also loved the idea of giving someone’s dress another go - a new chance to shine, rather than creating a new once only to be hidden away in a cupboard somewhere.

Naturally there are 1,000s of bridal dresses on E-bay, many of which are shipped from Hong Kong and China. There were still plenty to choose from in the UK from brides who wanted to pass on their dress to a new owner. I did start to ponder why they came to the decision to sell, and some even told me it could be bad luck to buy off someone whose marriage ended in tears.

Staying open minded, I spotted a dress that I liked and got excited by its very low bidding (£50). I joined the bidding war only to lose at the last minute. The dress went for £150. Still a bargain in comparison to the usual hundreds or even thousands of pounds brides fork out for their dress.

Finding ‘the one’

A bit disheartened by the defeat, I continued browsing the dresses until I spotted another one. I almost fell off my chair when I read that the bride originally paid £3000 for the Italian-designed dress she bought for her wedding. It was made with pure silk and gorgeous lace and no one had taken up the starting bid of £200. Looking at the dress in finer detail only made me love it even more. And finally I took the plunge and placed my bid by which point the auction was coming to an end. The confirmation email told me that I was the new proud owner of a wedding dress!

All manner of emotions kicked in, none of which I could share with my husband to be. Instead I called my mum in a bit of a panic - what if it’s a hoax?! What if it doesn’t fit?! Luckily I calmed down and decided to send the seller an email trying hard to hide my concerns. Her reply was reassuring as she wished me well with her dress which had helped make her day memorable. She was pleased it was going to an excited new owner.

The big day! (the dress arrives…)

After a week or so the dress arrived in the post. Apparently Royal Mail refused to send it in its large original box, so the seller had to repackage, so it eventually arrived in a bin liner! Not quite the entrance it deserved, but exciting nonetheless.

I pulled the dress out and tentatively tried it on when H2B was out at work. It fitted like a glove! The relief was immense. And it’s a truly beautiful dress. It needs a bit of an iron after its encounter with the postal service, and needs to be taken up a little, but other than that, I can’t wait to wear it next year!

TOP TIPS for buying a bridal dress on E-Bay

• look for dresses shipped from the UK (not Asia which aren’t always second hand)
• always ask the seller questions to be sure you’re getting what’s described
• ask for detailed measurements - and don’t forget to measure yourself first!
• remember that many brides have a reserve price, so it may take a few goes at bidding before you hit this
• ask if there are any marks from where it’s dragged on the ground
• remember that if it doesn’t fit, you can always resell

Great news today - we’ve got a new blogger bride, Sarah Lewis, an environmental journalist, no less!

So without further ado, we will hand you over to Sarah, who is just at the start of her green wedding journey…

The couple: Sarah & Toby
Wedding date: September 2009
Venue and location: Barcombe Mills (but it’s not officially booked yet!)
Budget: umm…

What inspired you to have an ethical wedding?
I’m an environmental journalist and run an ethical lifestyle magazine (gratuitous plug: www.rocksmagazine.co.uk) so spend my whole day reading, researching, interviewing and writing on environmental and ethical topics.

The result of having so much information is it becomes very difficult to be unethical when the option is there. As a result, Toby and I do live with environmental concerns somewhere in the back of our minds most of the time.

That isn’t to say we don’t commit heinous green crimes pretty often, but I don’t think either of us would make it through the wedding process without at least thinking ‘hang on a minute, we’d never normally consider that acceptable’.

What has been the most difficult bit so far?
Having to turn down the offer of a free weekend trip to New York to look at wedding dresses with my mum.

What has been the most fun bit?
Coming up with all kinds of silly and creative ideas to make the day a bit different, and having friends offer to do all kinds of amazing things.

What are your 5 top tips for brides and grooms planning an ethical wedding?

1. Use people’s skills
It saves you money, doing it yourself is always more eco, and it helps people feel involved. I discovered my sister is an origami genius, so she is making a lot of our decorations out of old magazines etc, and our super-domestic friend is baking our cake.

2. Go minimal
You don’t actually *need* all the crap they say you do.

3. It doesn’t have to be perfect
You may well struggle to find everything up to your ethical standards - but isn’t that just the same as your every day life? Better to do a little than nothing at all.

4. Be prepared to explain it to people several times
Especially to mothers who want to fly to New York for the weekend…

5. Enjoy it
Remember that even doing one little eco thing is spreading a powerful message to all the guests at your wedding, so please don’t fret, and have the most amazing day with your friends and family.

This week we’re pleased to introduce you to Sue Harper who, with her husband Pete, runs Sweet Loving Flowers supplying organic and seasonal wedding flowers for a stylish and sustainable wedding! Over to Sue: 

Name: Sue Harper
Location: mid Wales

Tell us a bit about yourself and your business
Growing and selling seasonal cut flowers is something I’ve wanted to do for many years now.

My husband Pete and I are both organic gardeners and we started the business 2 years ago. We are building up the cutting garden, planting shrubs and perennials, as my hope is that eventually we’ll be able to offer arrangements for weddings at any time of year.

What or who inspires you?
The flowers inspire me, I still never cease to be amazed by the intricacy, beauty, and variety of them and in the case of annuals, the feat of so many flowers, so quickly growing from one little seed is always magical.

I’m also inspired by my husband Pete with all his hard work, Sarah Ravens’ books have been very helpful with choosing flower varieties and Roger MacLennan, gardener at The Centre for Alternative Technology taught me how to grow things!

What do you enjoy most about running your business?
Seeing people get pleasure from the flowers, watching the plants grow and the bees visiting the flowers, and seeing all the other wildlife at the field.

What is the most challenging aspect?
It’s lucky we don’t mind hard work!

What do you feel you bring to an ethical wedding?
Flowers grown without artificial chemicals, that haven’t been flown long distances or grown in heated polytunnels that use large amounts of energy.

How do you see the wedding industry changing over the next five years (if at all)?
A lot of the enquiries that I receive are interested in sourcing everything as locally as they can.

Find out more about Sweet Loving Flowers

Apparently the ubiquitous ‘credit crunch’ could be affecting our desire to get married.

The Observer observed at the weekend - under the heading ‘We know it’s cheap…but we love it anyway’ - that ‘Living in sin’ was on the up, being:

“Much more chic - and credit-crunch friendly - than dull ol’ marriage”

As you would expect, I disagree, believing my own marriage to be the epitome of chi-chi chic (because what could be more important?!) but in the interests of scientific enquiry, I wondered how many people will be put off getting married by tightening belts…  I have often heard couples say, ‘Oh, we won’t get married for a few years yet, we have to save up’.

I absolutely agree that making a commitment to one person for the rest of your life is huge, and you should wait however long it takes before you’re ready to do it (if you want to that is).  But that you should have to wait until your bank account is big enough seems a real shame.

I know the average cost of weddings is going up and up but reading the stories of many of our ‘real life ethical weddings’ and the accounts of our blogger brides, it seems you don’t necessarily have to spend a fortune to say ‘I do’.

Maybe I’m just being naive… what do you think?

Katie

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net