Sunday
Jun062010
We're Getting Married ... in the Veggie Patch!!!
Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 05:39PM 
This coming spring we’re getting married in our veggie patch, and would love to hear of any ideas you have for a nature-inspired, green wedding! In planning for our wedding to be a special, creative and eco-friendly celebration, so far our ideas are:
- To have a lunchtime wedding with the ceremony in the veggie patch and reception in our home and garden. Afterwards we’ll go camping with family and friends on the Shoalhaven River to extend the celebrations in typical Ally and Rich style (we love camping!)
- Provide scrumptious in-season, organic vegetarian food from a fabulous local green caterer the Red Kitchen.
- Create invitations out of hand made recycled paper (we’ve made handmade paper before and it’s really fun and easy – watch out for a blog about this!)
- Wear funky vintage clothing. Our wonderful crafty friend Annie is making a dress for Ally out of recycled vintage fabrics – see Annie’s blog for more details!
- Encouraging guests to car pool
- Find some simple wedding rings made out of recycled silver (preferably by a local artist – if you know of anyone who makes recycled silver rings, please forward us the details!)
We’d really love to hear of any other ideas you may have...
Reader Comments (15)
What a wonderful place to get married. And it all sounds so lovely.
Are you doing bonbonniere? (That is the wierdest word!). How about giving everyone a little seedling?
I love the idea of camaping for your honeymoon. We hired a house boat on Port Hacking. Nice and simple and relaxing.
Congratulations, sounds fantastic, hope you have a great time leading up to the big day...
Wow, congratulations!
Fantastic news, congratulations. We too had a backyard wedding, apart from the ceremony which was in the River Bed of the (dry) Todd River. Here's some green things we did for our big party;
Compostable crockery & cutlery - slowly being eaten by the worms as we speak.
Hand made table decorations. Old glass jars with a wire strung around the rim and looped over the top to make a handle. A great variety of whirls and swirls in the wire handle made for some pretty specky art! THe jars then had some red centre sand (we live in Alice Springs you see!) and then a tea light. You could use some local native flowers? These were made by a bunch of friends over tea and cake one morning.
TAble cloth weights made from small river stones wound round with wire and attached to a clip... one for each corner. We used unbleached calico for the clothes and I have since dyed them ina variety of colours and turned them into flags for our kids school Autumn Fair.
Local native flowers for me, the friends and the tables.
Signs around saying the fairy lights were run by solar, recycle bins well marked, local produce used as much as possible.
Invitations hand made including a leaf from the gum that towers over our yard.
We borrowed tables, chairs etc as much as we could. Of course, much of the sparkly finery was borrowed. THe frock was a display one, the fella bought a suit rather than hire so it can be used again and again ... (for all the fancy things we go to HA!)
I'm sure there's more... but i hope this gives you some ideas. Have fun! We did. A wedding is the perfect we to celebrtate something that is worth being super happy about - your partnership. Celebrate it with great festivity and joy with all those who contribute to your world, who support you, love you and have in some way made you who you are.
Here's cheers to you both and thanks again for the wonderful website. Hoooroo for now - Katja
Thanks so much for your congratulations Tricia, Darren, Dixibelle and Katya! Love your ideas Tricia and Katja, thanks so much for sharing! You have given us lots of 'food for thought' about how we can make our wedding a wonderful and green celebration! Katja your wedding day sounds like it was amazing - hopefully we can make our just as enjoyable! :-)
No ideas at the moment to share, just wanted to say congratulations to the both of you!
Ree
It sounds really lovely. What about some non electric music? Do you have friends who are musical, if not you maybe able to get some talented musicians from a local high school. Congratulations and have a beautiful wedding day.
Horse n Cart arrival
Find a talented Charcoal sketcher for weeding "photos"
Use banana leaves and other natural plant products for service and cutlery.
I suggest spending so time looking into islander weddings and tribal weddings and see what grass roots inspiration you can find there.
Stick with finger food to minimise waste and remove need for excessive seating and tables.
Perhaps some use of gourds and the like as decorations, aztec colored corn.
Might come up with more later.
Congrats guys and thanks for all your helpful info on this site and Dailies fruit forum. You truly are inspirational.
Of course, I knew you two were already married...once you buy chickens together, it's official! ;)
The only green suggestion I can make, is asking people to buy you plants, compost or mulch for your wedding presents. You could also ask guests to provide a dessert plate each, so you don't have to worry about all that cooking prior to your wedding day.
It's customary to provide a little wedding gift to your guests as well. You could hand-out packets of assorted seeds, in specially designed envelopes. Write the customary wedding details and thank-you's on the front, with a message: "plant a seed in remembrance of our day."
Anyway, congratulations. Spring isn't that far away. :)
Thanks so much Chris, Charles, and Shangri for your suggestion, and Ree for your congratulations! You have given us so many valuable ideas - we're really looking forward to incorporating many of the ideas into our special day!
Hi guys, Sorry this is old hat now - I am so behind on reading my fave blogs - but congratulations! How divine to be married in the garden, surrounded by the - literal! - fruits of your labours together :-) I love all the suggestions you've received, particularly the seed packets. I also love the idea of planting a tree or some such as part of the ceremony. What fun!
Congrats again! I forgot to tell you I have leftver seed packets form when we packaged up the picked with love ''happy earth'' calendula seeds to give to our guests- you are welcome to them. People have just started telling me that their seeds are growing well. So exciting-new life from our wedding in more than one way! Thanks again for sharing this gift with us! Your day will be so special!
Also n the style of Hindu ceremony we did, seed planting was a post wedding ceremony at our new house.
Thanks Julie and Julie for your congratulations! Giving packets of seeds is a wonderful idea, and I'm glad they worked so well at your wedding Julie H, and that they have been growing successfully for people! That is a lovely reminder of your gorgeous wedding for them! Awesome to hear you have the seeds planted at your new house too! :-)
I love the idea of seeds as a bonbonniere. We are planning our wedding at the moment and are considering giving seed bombs to our guests :D
Love the idea of 'seed bomb' bonbonneire Sam! Congratulations and best of luck planning your wedding too!