Georgina Clatworthy

By Georgina Clatworthy



To be eco-friendly these days is to be eco-chic so it is little wonder that this has spilled over into weddings. Creating an eco-friendly wedding is not as difficult as you might think and as being eco-friendly begins to apply to so many aspects of our lives, finding the right look and materials is relatively easy.

Whether your wedding is in autumn or spring, you can create a look which incorporates natural and rustic details, with muted tones and eco-friendly materials for a stylish and understated wedding theme. Here are just a few ideas for your eco-friendly wedding:

• Harvest Festival: decorate your tables with organic cotton table cloths and create a runner with natural colored hemp. Use wooden place mats with simple plain white crockery, cutlery and cotton napkins wrapped with jute ribbon. Place a sheaf of corn in the center tied with natural raffia and decorated with a simple wooden heart. Look out for old glass bottles into which you can place single rose stems and decorate by wrapping jute string around the necks. For table numbers paint numbers on jute wine bottle bags and create placecard holders with chunky wooden hearts with a slit cut into them.
  
• Green Paper: keep the eco friendly wedding theme with recycled papers and kraft card. Old fashioned luggage tags make great thank you tags for wedding favors, whilst pretty stamps with a natural theme and die cut shapes add interest to flat invitation cards.
  
• Eco Cakes: give your guests cupcake wedding favors made from organic ingredients and iced with decorations made from natural colourings.
  
• Botanical Beauty: sprigs of rosemary or bunches of fresh lavender add a pretty and fragrant touch to place settings. Bind them with jute string or organic cotton tape, decorated with a wooden heart personalized with your guests names.
  
• Refreshing Taste: give your guests something refreshing to drink with old fashioned lemonade made from organic ingredients or elderflower wine in elegant, old fashioned bottles. Present them in stylish tumblers with plantable coasters and kitsch straws.
  
• Perfect Picnics: a picnic is a perfect catering choice for an outdoor summer wedding. Give your guests an organic menu presented in biodegrable boxes with wooden cutlery and serviettes. Or for a buffet on the lawn use palm leaf dishes and small canapé boats with bamboo deli sticks holding labels indicating each dish. Decorate the buffet table with punched confetti made from recycled kraft papers and 3D die cut butteflies.
  
• Eco Creative: make stylish table centers with large freestanding wooden letters representing your initials, wooden candle and tea light holders and pine cones delicately scented with pine essential oil.
  
• For the Children: keep little ones happy with a recycled drawing paper and a bunch of colored pencils made from recycled sawdust. Tie the papers together with some jute string and add a handstamped kraft luggage tag with the childs name on.
  
• Favorite Favors: make fun wedding favors using popcorns presented in biodegradable paper bags with cellophane windows. Use a pretty stamp to decorate the bags and tie closed with jute string or natural raffia.