The average cost of a wedding is somewhere between £10,000 and £15,000. You can help keep costs down at the same time as making your wedding more environmentally friendly.

Venue

Choice of venue is vital to make sure your day goes well. But don’t just consider big chain hotels and restaurants, have a look at what your local community can offer: village halls, locally owned hotels, art centres, local historic meetings halls, museums – there is a big range of licensed venues available. Choosing a more unique venue will probably mean you need to put more work in to get things organised as you want, but the experience will at least be unique!

If there are different venues for the wedding and reception, make sure they are close together to reduce transport between the two, or provide a coach for guests (I went to a wedding in Germany which provided a beautifully preserved ancient charabanc to take us from one venue to the other – marvellous!).

Choose a venue that is close to public transport, so that guests travelling from afar at least have the option of leaving their car at home, with the bonus of not having to worry about drinking and driving. Hire a minibus to bring them to the venue if its that bit to far. And it can ferry people away afterwards as well.

Check out the environmental policies of the venue. The easiest check you can se for yourself is if they have energy-efficient light-bulbs.

Invitations and Stationery

Personalised stationery can be expensive. If you want to send out cards, choose some made from recycled paper, or from an FSC certified source. Instead of sending our reams of information to everyone about directions, hotels, and gift list, set up a website, and just send it on paper to those people who don’t have internet access.

Rings

One gold ring produces around 3 tonnes of toxic waste, and uses a huge amount of energy in it’s extraction.

Some gold mining uses cheap labour in conditions which exploit workers, or is mined with cyanide, which is highly toxic to workers. Look for “ethical gold”. There is a move to introduce Fair Trade gold by 2009.

The Kimberley Process is a international movement to stop the flow of conflict diamonds – those mined to finance wars. They have a certification process so you know your diamonds are “conflict free”.

You can buy Fair Trade silver jewellery from a range of suppliers.

Gifts

Why not put together an ethical wedding list? Ideas at Our Green Wedding List , and The Natural Store

If you already have most of what you need, why not suggest that guests donate to charity (charities), rather than buying you presents? Many charities, such as Oxfam and Action Aid , will help you with this, and with your ethical wedding list.

See also our section on gifts.

Honeymoon

For ideas for a green honeymoon see our section on responsible tourism.

Decorations

You an buy paper streamers and chains made from recycled materials, or ask people to make their own.

Confetti can be made from recycled paper, and biodegradable types are available. Or make your own from dried rose or bougainvillia petals, coloured rice or birdseed. Avoid plastic confetti.

Flowers

Buy your flowers from a local supplier if possible – avoid flowers flown in from a distant country, or grown in hothouses – see our section on flowers (flowers). Make sure your flowers are pesticide free.

Photographs

Rather than buying each table a disposable camera, get a friend to move around the tables taking photos, then publish them on a free commercial website such as Photobox.

Transport

You’ve thought about picking a venue which will help reduce travel costs, but you still want to arrive and leave in style. Rather than hiring a big gas-guzzler, why not choose a horse-drawn carriage?

Cake

Rather than buying a commercial cake full of additives and chemicals, make one yourself or get a friend to make it as a gift, than you know exactly what’s gone into it.

Ethical Weddings

Lots of information and discussion on all the above topics and more at Ethical Weddings .