Do Earth a favour, plan an Eco-friendly wedding

GUEST POST BY EMILY CLEATON

Gone are the days when the brides considered ‘white’ as the hottest colour for her wedding. Now, green is on the rise. Many brides are coming down in favour of using eco-friendly tactics into their wedding planning. Recycled invitations, green flowers, plantable wedding favours, and green gowns are some of the things that will make your big day a little more eco-friendly. Know how to incorporate these eco-friendly ideas into your wedding...

Use recycled paper
Instead of a paperless wedding, why not use recycled paper for your eco-friendly wedding. It is one of the simplest ways to create green invitations and set the tone of your themed ceremony. To do this, you need to find a vendor that can print on recycled paper or extra scraps. A little creativity can make your recycled invitations look truly awesome. For an alternative to cut back on paper, you can also send invitations through emails.

Add a green tone
To add a green tone to your wedding, another important thing is to find an eco-friendly venue. Parks, rooftop gardens, and the woods are some of the perfect places where couples can plan a green wedding. If you are tying the knot in a big city like London or New York, you may even be able to find an ideal location that holds your wedding in a natural environment. For those looking for a wedding venue in London, they can narrow their searches at thecitycollection.org.

Go green with wedding favours
You don’t need to break the bank for giving the wedding favours. Honour your guests with something that they actually keep and use. Green favours are great and earth-friendly. Some suggestions for DIY favours include baked yams, jam, chocolate, soy candles, handmade soap, birdhouses, and tea sachets. If homemade things don’t attract you much, what about jute shopping bags, reusable poly bags or other products. You'll find a whole range of green wedding favours at eBay.

All these things will encourage your guests to follow an eco-friendly lifestyle. To make a more powerful impact, you can include information about local stores that offer eco-friendly products along with your favours.

Potted plants for centrepieces
Using in-season and simple produced flowers is one way to go green when holding your wedding eco-friendly. Talk to your local florist about the potted plants and ask him to set up flowers for your centrepieces and bouquets. The best thing about plotted plants is that they can be given away to your guests as a favour, once the event gets over.

Ditch the disposables
If you are an environmentally friendly couple, then you can’t avoid this tip. It is true that disposables will help you to lessen your stress, but they create a ton of waste. So, it is better to go for china dishes, flatware, and cloth napkins. They will look more stylish and can be re-used.

Organic food menu
Ethnic food is great, but why not feed your guests with any organic food. There are restaurants and caterers that promise to serve a hearty selection of organic, locally grown food. You can also get in touch with your local farms to buy the fresh fruits and vegetables for your wedding. Curried Chicken Salad with Grapes, Tortellini with Bacon and Spinach, and Apple Blintz Pancakes are some of the suggestions that you can try.

If you are a little environment-conscious, then follow these whimsical ideas to plan a green wedding.

Author’s Bio: Emily Cleaton is a globetrotter, nature lover, food fanatic, and feature writer. She spends her spare time in sharing the event planning ideas across the web.

We heart floral crowns this Spring

PHOTO CREDIT: Lovedale Photography, Rebekah Westover Photography, Kelsea Holder Photography, Amber Weimer, Matt and Jentry Photographers, Colin Cowie Weddings

I am loving floral crowns on brides at the moment, and with Spring approaching what better time to wear beautiful fresh flowers in your hair on your wedding day!

There are so many ways you can wear flower crowns as a bride. Here's a few ways to style them and how to achieve the look...

The understated flower crown

As the saying goes, sometimes less is more. A simple, understated, and delicate flower crown can be a pretty, Spring-time alternative to the usual bridal tiaras and hair pieces.

Via Lawson Photography

To get the look: Gypsophila (also known as 'Baby's Breath') is the perfect flower for a dainty floral crown, or any small flowers with a bit of foliage works well.  Style with a relaxed hair do and natural make up for a Spring bridal look. Simple and elegant!

The statement flower crown

The opposite to the understated crown, this is great for brides who want to stand out with a statement hair piece. The use of bold, brightly coloured flowers works great for Autumn brides, think pink, peach and purple colours.

Via Taken Photography

To get the look: Wear your hair in a sleek side bun, or side plait to bring more attention to the flower piece. Choose bold coloured flowers that will compliment your wedding colour scheme if you have one. Style with dramatic make-up to match, and choose a lippy of the same colour of a flower in your floral crown to complete the look.

The flower crown & veil

You can still wear a beautiful flower crown with a traditional bridal veil, and there are different ways to wear it too!

Photography by Elisabetta Marzetti & Haley Rynn Ringo

To get the look: There are two most common (and easy) ways of wearing a veil with a floral crown. The first is to wear your veil like a Juliette Cap on your head, or, completely over your face and then place the crown on top. The other way is to attach your veil to the back of your crown underneath the flowers, so that it flows down your back.

The boho bride flower crown

Flowers in a brides hair is probably the first thing you think of when you hear the words 'bohemian wedding'. I love the boho bridal look, especially for a relaxed, garden wedding in the Spring/Summer time.

Via Fiore Beauty

To get the look: Wear your hair down with loose, natural curls, and braid / plait pieces of your hair to give it extra texture. Put some golden, sun-kissed highlights in your hair for the ultimate boho babe look. Finish off with your simple and pretty flower crown made with pastel coloured flowers and foliage. Keep your make up natural and chic to complete the look.

Don't forget to head over to my floral crown Pinterest board for more inspiration! (there may also be a few furry friends in there!) x

Budgeting for your wedding

One of the most important things to establish when starting to plan your wedding is your budget. Your wedding budget is basically the maximum amount of money you are willing to spend on your entire wedding and all the preparations. As I said in one of my previous posts, this should be one of the first things you do before you start buying anything. However big or small your budget is, costs will quickly spiral out of control if you don't keep track of everything you are spending. We all know how easy it is to get carried away!

So how do know what your budget should be?

If you're anything like me when I got engaged, you won't have the foggiest idea of the different costs and pricing involved in getting married, so working on a budget may seem an impossible task to begin with. You can spend a lot of time researching prices and getting quotes to give you an idea, but I guarantee that you will have forgotten some things (and it's amazing how all the less obvious things can add up!)

A really useful tool that I want to share with you is this really quick and simple to use wedding cost calculator. If you already have in mind what kind of wedding day you want, i.e. the venue type, how many guests etc, you can get a pretty accurate estimate of how much you're likely to spend on your wedding using the calculator. Try it yourself below:

(via Every Day Loans)

Things to remember

These are just average prices and every budget will be different depending on what sort of wedding you are planning, and how much you are comfortable spending. Remember, it is most definitely possible to create the perfect wedding for you, on eve the smallest of budgets. It's all about lots of price comparing, DIYs and hand-me-downs. No-one will know on the day!