My husband and I got hitched, several years ago, before we started living la vida verde, so think of this new matrimonially minded series as a laundry list of things we would have done if we had to do it all over again-trust me, we don't. Still, it occurred to me that our wedding did have certain green elements, simply by virtue of us being starving writers living in New York City, which isn't nearly as romantic as it might sound. Here's how being dirt poor shrank the carbon footprint of our wedding:
1. We held the wedding in the day-morning actually, because I'm a brunch girl and, well, I wanted to serve brunch. There was no need for electrical lighting: Natural sunlight poured generously through the ample windows.
2. Because I'm a brunch-loving vegetarian-and because it was cheaper-90 percent of the food served was vegetarian. My then-groom insisted on throwing in some meat for the carnivores.
3. Food was prepared on site by the kitchen staff of the building. We used real linens and silverware to save on the expense of purchasing disposables, which would be pretty tacky at a wedding, anyway.
4. Two words: Cash. Bar.
5. My sister did my hair, and I did my own makeup, while one of the guests (a semi-pro photog) took the snaps, so no extra people had to travel to our event.
7. We sent our Save the Dates electronically; I also designed our wedding invitations, printing them out on my trusty inkjet printer.
8. Although our flowers weren't organic, we did our own arranging using old glass jars we had been saving. For table numbers, we used number transfers on ripped pieces of our old couch cover, which we then attached to the jars using twine and clothes pegs. (Shabby and chic!)
9. Our wedding was small-40 guests, give or take.
10. We skipped on the fancy, frilly decorations and got married in front of a vintage red door, which I just fell in love with, on the veranda.
11. No wedding party-I didn't think it was necessary and I really didn't want to spend brainpower stressing over colors, fabrics, and matchy-matchyness. Our friends weren't loaded with bags of money, either, so we didn't want anyone to buy an outfit just for the wedding.
12. No string quartet-c'mon, how clichéd is that? A dear friend burned classic jazz standards on CDs and we piped the music through the speaker system.
13. My parents stayed at our place, instead of getting a hotel room-see where my stinginess comes from? (We skedaddled somewhere else for our wedding night, of course.)
14. No expensive limo, no separate cars. Most of our guests took the subway.
15. Instead of a decked-out wedding cake, we served mouthwatering cupcakes from a nearby bakery.
Practice with me: "[Insert monetary sum]? For [insert object of desire]? Are you insane? Well, screw that, we don't need it."
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