ecobites.com

Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

It is actually possible to have an affordable, fun, green wedding.

We consider ourselves lucky to have the wedding that we had, but I notice that a lot of people are having trouble comprehending how to have a wedding on a budget of $5000, so I made sure to keep track of how we spent our money.

Sure, there were some things missing from our wedding - some were personal preference (no meat at the brunch) and some were because of financial reasons. But, because we made sure to prioritize, those things that some people might say are "missing," were not really missed by us at all.

My parents gave us a gift of $5,000 and that's about what we spent. Which includes everything except for a lot of time and labor we and our lovely friends and family put in. If I did not list it, we probably did not have it. Good luck!

Ceremony 

We both wanted an outdoor wedding. We considered a lot of places, but accessibility was important. We've got lots of cute little old ladies in our families. After a little investigating we decided on a local state park that had a beautiful shelter built by the PWA in the 1940's of local quarried rock.

The price was right being just $25 per day. We rented the shelter for the night before as well and barbequed there for the rehearsal dinner.

The only draw backs were the not so nice bathrooms. We own a couple of wooden TV tray like folding tables. I put one in each bathroom with a basket of assorted hand sanitizer, lotion, tissues, mints, Tylenol and safety pins.

After the ceremony the baskets were brought to the receptions' bathrooms.

I should also mention we didn't really have a rain plan. It was going to happen outside rain or shine with out a tent. We're really lucky it didn't rain.

We rented chairs for the audience. It was $110 for 100 chairs to be delivered and picked up. However, we had to put out the chairs and return them to their racks. Luckily we had some obliging friends and family who took care of this.

RECEPTION

We needed a location that would allow us to bring in our own food. We wanted to use local or organic food as much as possible and many catering services charge outrageous prices to alter the menus enough to accommodate a green wedding.

Since we weren't having the wedding at a church, why not the reception? My groom's church had just built a new community room. In fact for a while we worried it wouldn't be done in time for the wedding, but they did manage to get it put together just seven days before the wedding. The cost of rental was $75 for four hours and $25 for use the kitchen.

Total in site rentals = $235

ATTIRE

It was important to me that only natural fibers were used in the wedding party's clothing. This turned into a huge hassle.

Eventually I revoked that rule. Between the mothers having difficulty and my bridesmaids complaining I told them to pick something they wanted to wear and just not tell me what it was made from.

WEDDING DRESS

I knew I wanted a really simple, not very formal dress since the wedding was going to be outside in the morning. It also had to have straps. I work outside and no matter how much sunscreen I put on I was going to have a tank top tan line.

I spent a lot of time searching eBay. I bought 5 different dresses and really loved two of them. The one I wore for the wedding is from J. Crew, the ‘Sophia Long’. It's 100% silk. It fit perfectly and didn't need a stitch of alteration.

I resold the dresses I didn't want on eBay and I actually turned a profit. The cost for my dress was $88 including shipping.

GROOM‘S SUIT

An other eBay find. After much looking and debate we bought this linen suit. He looked very hansom. It did require some alterations.

A friend recommended a woman who does alterations out of her home. She took in the suit jacket and hemmed the pants for $18. The cream French cuff shirt was also off eBay, as were his sandals.

We got his tie at the same shop we got the groomsmen's shirts. His cufflinks were my wedding gift to him. I got them from a local antique mall. His outfit cost came in at a total of $288.95.