The Green Wedding

For the month of love, green is sexy shines a CFL spotlight on John and Allyson Lindsley, two Ohio natives now residing in Seattle, who recently had a very green big day.

We hear you had a big fat green wedding! What were some of the reasons you wanted to be eco friendly on the big day?
When we realized we were potentially spending a lot of money for just one day, we wanted to be sure our dollars were going to the right places. To us that meant ensuring our wedding would have a soft environmental impact, and that our dollars were contributing to supporting fair trade. Although we wanted to go local as much as possible, we wanted to pay fair trade for our goods that were being shipped from other countries. In a way, we just wanted our wedding to help, not hurt the local and global communities. Plus, we are conscious of the environment in our daily lives, so we wanted to reflect this on our wedding day when our lives would come together.

What are some of the things you did to stay low impact and environmentally conscious?

1. Our reception site, the Culinary Vegetable Institute, was an amazing green facility with fresh produce straight from the farm.
2. The church we worked with for our ceremony takes all profits (after operating expenses) and donates to children of the working poor and autistic education efforts in the local community.
3. Local Food (fresh from the garden!) and Beverages (local wine and beer) at Reception, as well as Organic Fair Trade Coffee. Buying local ensures a minimal carbon footprint.
4. The Bride and Bridesmaids’ bouquets, the groom’s boutonniere, and all table and floral arrangements were created at CVI from herbs grown in the vegetable garden, vegetable blossoms, and flowers grown on site. Did you know the zucchini plant grows flowers that usually go to waste?
5. Donating to Carbonfund.org to offset our travels from Seattle to Ohio; posting a link to CarbonFund.org on our website for guests.
6. Recycled Paper for programs and invitations
7. Fair Trade Wedding Dress and dress for Bride’s Mother were from Lena Medoyeff Bridal Studio in Portland, OR. Lena buys her raw silk material from a woman in India, pays her fair trade for her labor, then employs a local seamstress to create the dresses. Allyson loves how she knows exactly where her dress came from!
8. In lieu of party favors for guests (that usually get tossed in the garbage anyways), we donated to Oxfam Unwrapped, purchasing gifts like a “Plant 100 Trees”, “Support a Farmer”, and “Pair of Sheep” to ensure that we were giving to communities that need it the most.
9. Wedding Party Gifts + Gifts for musicians, readers, officiant: Handmade Jewelry Boxes from Rwanda (www.handmadeexpressions.net) , Eco-Stationery, Fair Trade Organic Coffee & Chocolate from Theo’s Chocolate (www.theochocolate.com) , jewelry from www.tenthousandvillages.com.
10. We made a wedding mix CD for our out-of town guests made with recycled CD sleeves from www.rebinder.com.
11. We took the time to research our vendors and worked with those that upheld eco-friendly values and had their own green initiatives in place. We liked some things being done at Great Lakes Brewing and Paper Source.
12. And if there was a way to harness all that energy generated from the dance floor at the reception, we definitely would have fed it back to the power grid.

Ha!  You might be onto something with that dance floor energy solution.  Tell us about the Culinary Vegetable Institute where you had your reception. That sounded like a great place.
CVI offered so much of what we were hoping for to make our wedding day environmentally and socially responsible, and not to mention a very vegetarian-friendly menu for the bride! The veggies served were all fresh and organic produce from their garden, and for the carnivores the meat was grass-fed beef. CVI pays close attention to its environmental impact and is an ardent proponent of sustainable agriculture. Focusing on the “earth to table” method, farmers and chefs come together to use in-season produce grown at the facility. The site itself is a green facility that was built from local limestone and timber, and includes large windows to allow for minimum indoor lighting.

All the table decorations at CVI came directly from their gardens, as did the herbs used for our specialty cocktails.

We were able to meet with our Chef, Johannes Klapdohr, to describe some of our tastes, and these are some of the amazing creations he came up with…

• Beet “Lollypops” with Spices, Crushed Almonds and Scented Oils
• Chefs Garden Summer Rolls with Spicy and Sweet Jingle Bell Pepper Dip
• Lasagna of Summer Squash, Bok Choy and Root Spinach with Buffalo Mozzarella
• Oven Roasted Grass Fed Beef Tenderloin “Carved to Order” with Sunflower Crust and Vidalia Onion Jus

Sounds like you had some really interesting food! Especially those beet “lollypops.” What is one of the best/ most fun green things you did for your wedding?

Well, topping the fun things we did included when we invited our out-of-town guests over for a barbeque with our families before the wedding day. Even for this occasion we were able to be green by serving food and recipes from the bride’s parents’ garden and contributing to their compost when we were done. It was a great day with Ohio sun, friends, games, and great fresh food!

You knew where every food came from – that’s a great idea. What were some of the hardest green decisions you had to make when planning your wedding?

Something we struggled with was the idea of showcasing our green practices to our guests without being overbearing or overly preachy. We wanted to show people that a wedding can be super fun, but also be environmentally conscious and socially responsible.

We also knew we couldn’t be 100% green. We tried to incorporate both green and fair trade ideas into every part of our day, but eventually realized not everything was going to be green due to lack of availability or cost.

But we must say, planning a green wedding is really easy! There are tons of resources for you out there such as:

• www.greatgreenwedding.com
• www.fairtradefederation.org
• www.etsy.com – so many eco-friendly vendors!
• ethicalweddings.com

Our initial plan was to incorporate fair-trade ideas on our big day, but the more we researched, the more being green and supporting fair-trade went hand-in-hand.

Are there any suggestions you would give to our readers who are considering having a low-impact wedding?

Don’t be afraid to step outside the traditional perception of a wedding. Let it be a reflection of who you are, and just try to plan the wedding day according to the green practices you already love and enjoy!

As long as your guests are buying you gifts, try adding green items to your registry. We love some of the bamboo and fair trade products we received!

And just because it’s fun – how did you two meet?

We happen to be from the same home town and were both home for Christmas. We were each at a friend’s party on Christmas evening, but being a small town it turned out to be the same party. We hadn’t actually met before that night, but the irony was that our parents lived right down the street from each other. So of course our wedding was back in our home town, and whenever we go home now for Christmas spending time with both families is easy.

Thanks, John and Allyson, and congratulations!

Photos by Whirlybird Photography.