emily featured by: the toronto star
As Spring sprouts around us, thoughts turn to gardens, flowers, birdsong ... and weddings.
Weddings are grand occasions – and getting grander. Each year, according to Wedding Bells magazine, Canadian couples plan to spend about $17,300 on their big day, but eventually fork out, on average, $23,000. That's a lot of nuptials.
Let's face it. Weddings have become consumerist celebrations, with hefty ecological footfalls. And unfettered consumerism is a major roadblock to an eco-friendly lifestyle. So, if you and your betrothed are an environmentally concerned couple, what to do?
Can you have a big bash without making a big gash in the planet?
People are waking up to the so-called eco-crisis and, as a result, are trying to read the major moments of their lives through a green lens.
Funerals, for example, are now being greened through the eco-burial movement, which sheds tropical hardwood caskets and polluting embalming and cremation processes for simple, unadorned "plantings" of our bodies.
So it is with weddings. Many who seek eco-friendly matrimony are now aided by writers such as Emily Elizabeth Anderson, author of Eco-Chic Wedding.
Marrying the 3 Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – with a quest for fair trade, non-sweatshop bridal attire, Anderson argues that much of the greening of matrimony can be quite simple. Using in-season flowers, for example, is cheaper and reduces the environmental cost of shipping in non-local blooms. Avoiding the "save-the date" cards saves some trees, and steering clear of "one-time use" dresses, shoes, and glassware is also gentler on the Earth. Those who see their union as a sacred event are incorporating nature into their services. At one recent wedding, the couple chose to hold their ceremony outdoors, read Scripture that accented creation, and substituted birdseed for rice for their post-ceremony shower.
In a sense, for those with spiritual sensibility, eco-weddings are an invitation to include additional 3 Rs. The first R is "Reciprocate." In a marriage, partners are called on to "give back," especially in hard times, as the human family is called in environmental contexts to give back to and not just take from creation.
The second R is "Rejoice." Creation, like wedding revellers, also goes "gaga," from the brilliant formation of stars to a sea of alpine wildflowers in bloom. An eco-marriage asks how to connect with the creative rejoicing of nature in a mutually life-giving way.
Finally, there's "Respect," the bedrock of a sound marriage , even during fractious times. An eco-marriage unites this mutual respect to respect for creation itself, and vows to never abuse the natural world.
Greening your wedding, then, can be an occasion to consume less, and be consumed more, by the creativity and celebrative joy of the natural world.
Stephen Bede Scharper, a University of Toronto professor, is co-author of The Green Bible (Lantern).
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