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The Alternative Wedding

We’ve talked about glamorous eco-travel, ethical shopping sprees and fair food (find them in the archive). But now, as part of our Wedding Season, we discover how green is the new white.

The Average cost of a British wedding is £17000. Weddings have long been a highpoint of life, but now they are more like the highpoint. We spend more today on weddings than we ever have before and our expectations are higher. The ethical cost is also huge. The child labour asparagas, blood diamond ring, the sweatshop dress and foodmiles lamb, create a bitter taste for an expensive dish.

The pressure for some, like myself, is a bit much. There are a whole troop of us that are flipping the whole ‘big day’ on its head and re-inventing the Gretna-Green runaway. Whether it’s a Vegas drive-thru wedding, a beach wedding for two or a trip to the local pub with your mates, being alternative has now become a little more normal. This sadly makes me feel a little less radical, but with every down there is an up. So, determined to find it, I work out a few plusses to the not so alternative trend for alternative.

Once you have decided you are OK with alternative, you discover a whole world of freedom. You don’t need something borrowed or something blue, you don’t need a white frock and you don’t need to prophesy sickness in your wedding vows. In fact, you can do whatever you like. For me this means avoiding walking down an aisle with a million people watching, it means I don’t have to carry a bunch of flowers around and it means there doesn’t have to be a dodgy DJ playing ABBA anywhere in sight. Think about what you love doing and who you love having around. For me, I love summer days at a lake in California. I love hanging out there, eating yummy food and having bonfires. So why not do that?

For alternative bunch of people, being ethical is easy. People have already discovered you are a bit ‘different’. So you can get away with almost anything to make your day not so costly to the earth, whatever your budget. Weddings naturally produce a lot of miles, a lot of waste and big carbon footprint. So by opting for something different you may quite naturally lessen your carbon foot-print.

Avoiding the big reception and its £30 a head silver service, means that if you are still putting some food on for folks, you can shop locally and ethically or pick an ethical restaurant. Going casual on the food relieves much of that stress we are desperately avoiding. Getting everyone to bring a ‘pot-luck’ plate is my plan. That way I can’t worry about what to feed people and how it is presented. People want to make your day great and will go along with whatever wacky plans you have. From pot-luck wedding experience, you need people to bring a dish that will feed 10. Let them know this is their gift to you. So as with wedding gifts, you can ask specifically for things – sweet/savoury, organic, fair-trade and presentation!

With casual eating it’s then up to you how much attention you pay to details – you can get fair-trade local flowers or not, you can buy natural candles or not, you can provide the organic wine or not – there’s freedom! If in the quest for stress free you decide on disposable plates – get biodegradable ones and provide bins for them. Glasses can be hired free from most good supermarkets.

This approach can be applied to everything – clothes, hosting guests, flowers, cars, honeymoon and gifts. We would be nuts not to mention how great it is to get a Living Generously wedding gift list and you would be nuts to have missed it! So check out the wedding section of the site and find out about having a goat for your wedding (goats have small little (non-carbon) footprints bless them!).

It’s hard to help you plan an alternative day because you could do anything! Instead here’s a final note of wisdom: This day doesn’t have to be perfect to be perfect. The food, wine, people, entertainment, location and cars don’t have to be the best you ever have – they just need to work towards you having a fun day!

Keep an eye on upcoming articles from our wedding season: The Traditional Wedding, The Generous Wedding, The Honeymoon…

Sarah Bainbridge

Sarah is a staff writer at Living Generously. She has a background in English and International Relations, with a history in youth and children's work

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