US Green Wedding Consortium Blog

Frame The Date - Green Gift Option!

Katie Martin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:07:52 +0000

We are always so excited about new products that actually make sense for the wedding industry! Frame the Date is made from reclaimed wood and is perfect for a wedding (or even the new baby!)

Click on the photo below to learn more about their product!

Find out What Your Centerpieces Will Look Like Virtually!

Katie Martin — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:37:46 +0000

Save yourself time, worry, money and not to mention flowers! So many magazines and online wedding planning sites tell you to ask for a sample of your centerpiece at your tasting. It is not only costly, but can be wasteful. Think about your florist. Typically they have to buy flowers in bulk and from the same source where they will buy your flowers the weekend of your wedding. So your one centerpieces may cause them to buy more flowers than they actually need for your centerpiece sample. What will they do with those extra flowers? Some may be able to sell them, however, many high-end event floral designers do not have walk-in shops to sell flowers. Typically the flowers will just go to waste.

If you are really wondering how the combination of your flowers will look like together…check out this amazing and most practical wedding website possibly ever created for the visual-centric bride. Designed by the Bride!

You can not only design your centerpiece, but your bouquet and cake flowers! Take a look:

Happy Designing!

Give Yourself (or your bridesmaids) the Gift of Eco-Lingerie

Katie Martin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:59:03 +0000

Prime wedding season part two starts up in about a month as September - November brides are looking for that perfect eco-friendly bridesmaid gift. Most brides will be looking for those cute lingerie items to wear on their honeymoon as well! I found a couple of great websites that use biodegradable underwear, organic cottons, hemp and remnants to make sexy and fashionable lingerie.

GreenKnickers.org - OMG - these are so cute! A few of their items may be a bit over the top for some of our more conservative readers…but they have boxers for your groom too!

LuvaHuva.co.uk - Another British company with some very pretty lingerie made from remnants and cut-offs that often get thrown away! Look at how cute and feminine these are!!! Genius!

And finally, the US born company that has the cutest website: Urban Fox - Be sure to go directly to their website after this! Based in CA, they use bamboo and organic cottons and their stuff is sexy and cute! Look!!!!

Tell us if you find something cuter!!!! We love finding sexy and cute things for our brides!

Green Wedding Garters!

Katie Martin — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:59:29 +0000

I had the pleasure of being at the Julianne Smith Launch Party at Hello Cupcake last night! Julianne has the most amazing, cute and sexy garters for your wedding day! To top it all off - she is local (Washington, DC)! We are going to start selling her garters in our office soon! Check them out:

We were able to eat yummy cupcakes and check out the garters all at the same time! I loved meeting Penny, the owner of Hello Cupcake, and eating a yummy carrot cake cupcake! Aren’t Penny and Julianne cuties! Cupcakes and garters - how could you go wrong????

Ivy Robinson came up from Charlotte for the event. Ivy is our Charlotte Couture Wedding ConsortiumDirector and she has been featured several times on Whose Wedding is it Anyway? and on the new series Hitched or Ditched!

I want to also send a quick thanks to Shannon from Sevan Photography for taking the photos and sending them to us so quickly! We were truly excited to be invited to the event and one of our brides go to be among the exclusive “10 brides only” list to check out the garters and meet wedding professionals from around the area!

Julianne’s motto: ”Embrace the Garter Tradition, With Style!”

She is able to custom coordinate your colors with your garter! Check out her website today!

More to come…

Katie Martin

Elegance & Simplicity

President

Founder of the USCWC

Earth Day Wedding in Washington, DC!

Katie Martin — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:30:26 +0000

The moment we had all been waiting for finally arrived on Earth Day! It was a perfect day for having a green wedding in Washington DC! The Washington DC Green Wedding Consortium went all out to provide a lucky couple with over $50,000 worth of professional wedding services and products.

You have seen previous posts about the beautiful Adele Wechsler wedding gown that was provided by Promise for the Savvy Bride, but here you will finally get to see the bride in the dress that she chose! Robin Fisher from Polished helped to style the bride and her sister with the best colors and accessories.

Although Earth Day was a very strange weather day, the wedding was beautiful! Fortunately, the couple had two of our photographers (Love Life Images & Documentary Associates) in the consortium that took amazing photos for them. Elegance & Simplicity’s owner, Katie Martin, headed up the effort as the Washington DC Green Wedding Consortium director and served as the couple’s wedding planner and designer. Elegance & Simplicity’s Green Love Events Division provided the floral designs. The wedding day started off with a quick interview from WJLA Channel 7 at the Mount Vernon United Methodist Church!

The eco-friendly bridal bouquet was made from blue delphnium, yellow freesia, pink astilbe, lisianthus and bouvardia.

The view of the church changed all day long from cloudy, rainy, hailing and sunny!

Videographer Jessica Pi took amazing coverage that we will post shortly! Elegant Hair by Giselle provided a beautiful natural look for the bride and Carola Myersprovided flawless eco-friendly make-up by Korres.

The guests were delighted as they came to the Decatur House Museum for the reception.

The altar arrangements were used three times throughout the day by Green Love Events! 1st at the altar, then in the foyer of the Jackson Place entrance of the museum and finally reused in a different vase on the buffet!

Utilizing the amazing local Cherry Blossom farmers, Green Love Events was able to display these magnificent blooms in the alcoves going up the stairs to the cocktail hour.

The cocktail hour was hosted upstairs in the museum, complete with mason jars filled with flowers! The tops of the mason jars were available to the guests at the end of the evening; encouraging guests to reuse the jars for their own use after the wedding! All of the flowers used for their wedding were grown by local farmers or from Holland’s pesticide free farmers. All Dutch flowers were flown in on a commercial flight to utilize space otherwise unused by the average consumer on a commercial flight!

The bride and groom made their way to the reception in a pedicab!

The guests were invited into the Carriage House after the cocktail hour for dinner and dancing. Here are some of the beautiful details from the tables!

The centerpieces consisted of three vases. Some tables had pink recycled glass jars (others had orange) accompanied by a flip top container and spice bottle filled with flowers. The tops for the spice jars were provided to guests at the end of the night and they were able to take the flip top jars to use for anything from holding sugar for their coffee in the morning to saving leftovers!

Evan from MyDeejay.com had everyone dancing all night long to the couples favorite tunes!

Avalon Caterers provided eco-friendly, local and organic cuisine from the cocktail hours through the end of dinner!

Cakes by Design provided a beautiful eco-friendly cake complete with fresh local raspberries and decor that can be reused again and again!

There were tons of intimate moments and interesting cultural elements in their wedding. The bride’s Scottish heritage brought forth the bagpiper at the church and the the beautiful custom-designed Korean Korum Bow on the bride’s gown was a fantastic addition to celebrate the groom’s culture.

Of course, the snapshot studio from Love Life Images was a hit!

Last but not least, the entire wedding was carbon neutral with a carbon offset purchased by Elegance & Simplicity from Carbonfund.org!

Elegance & Simplicity also provided all wedding stationery (which was all post-consumer waste recycled paper) and calligraphy. The stationery included wedding invitations, escort cards and programs. Elegance & Simplicity provided the couple with a logo and a logo sign to be reused by the couple as personal decor. All leftover flowers were either taken by the family or composted by Elegance & Simplicity. The discarded programs and escort cards were recycled by Elegance & Simplicity. Leftover food was packed up for the bride and groom and their families at the end of the evening by Avalon Caterers. Avalon Caterers made sure that all of their staff either carpooled or took Metro to the event. Ask your wedding professionals how they can make a eco-friendly difference in your wedding day! Check out all of the green wedding professionals in the consortium by clicking here!

Congratulations to our 2009 Green Wedding Giveaway Couple!

Eco-Friendly Wedding Make-Up

Katie Martin — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:24:43 +0000

So many brides have written in to me about how to have the best eco-friendly make-up possible for their wedding day. It really is a great way to start a new beauty regimen! I mentioned this briefly in a recent post for the Eco-Friendly wedding that was given away by the DC Green Wedding Consortium. Carola Myers was the make-up artist and used several eco-friendly products that are easy to find (and within a friendly price range as well)! Carola used Korres and Aveda products that can be found at Sephora, online and of course at Aveda stores!

Take a look at the bride’s make-up from the Earth Day Wedding- before and after photos taken by Jennifer Domenick of Love Life Images. Flawless, fabulous, earth-friendly make-up is possible!

Look and feel great on your wedding day while being Eco-Beautiful at the same time!

****Katie Martin

Elegance & Simplicity

Eco-Friendly Wedding Cake!

Katie Martin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:54:22 +0000

Want a Green Wedding Cake? With brides falling in love with dreams of towers of fondant and red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting fillings, I thought it was time for brides to take a real look at the type of wedding cakes they are choosing for their wedding day. Since the 1950’s, wedding cakes have been a permanent decor item at almost any wedding. Styles of cakes have changes and less plastic is associated with wedding cakes now (thank God!). However, the chemicals in cakes have not gone by the wayside. If you are wanting to have a green wedding day down to the last sweet drop, read further. You will be surprised by what you see!

* Not all the fruit fillings are made with real fruit. Some of it is a thick gel substance filled with sugar and no fruit at all. Make sure though if you are asking for real fruit to go the whole way. Ask for local fruits first and then ask if they are organically grown. It is easier for bakers to find organic raspberries and blueberries than finding them local. Fruit selections in your area really just depends on where you live. Try to be sensitive to your baker’s own vendor restrictions. However, if they cannot provide real fruit, move on to the next baker!

* Fondant may look pretty - but what is inside it - not so much! Fondant’s main ingredient is of course sugar - but hydrogenated oil is another large reason of how the fondant gets its look. Hydrogenated oils is a silent killer in the US today. Most green companies and food service companies are doing their best to eliminate these types of oils in their processing. Fondant manufacturers have not found a way yet to eliminate this ingredient without introducing an equally toxic one. Another reason fondant is not the way to go is due to the amount of waste that it creates. The majority of your guests will peel the fondant off the side of the cake as a very small percentage of people actually like the taste of fondant. Fondant will then be another item that is thrown in the trash at the end of the night. I am sorry fondant lovers - Fondant is not green! Go for buttercream icing with real butter! What could be better?

* Red velvet or the color green cake inside your cake sculpture? Beware, dyes make their way through your bodily waste and do not get digested. Let’s keep the dyes out of cake and keep your cake clean and free of dyes! Make sure your cake topper is either fresh flowers or something that you will keep for years to come and possibly reuse. For other tips about green weddings - stay tuned for more articles here! Photos courtesy of Elegance & Simplicity.

Blogs coming soon to all cities! Stay posted!

Katie Martin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:25:09 +0000

A big welcome and hello from Washington, DC!

As the CEO of the US Green & Couture Wedding Consortiums, I would like to welcome you to our new blog. All cities will have their own blog and we will post national headline items here at the main US Green Wedding Consortium blog for you! We are extremely excited about this new addition! We hope you will enjoy reading about new and excited things as the world of green weddings expands daily!

Let the greening of weddings begin!

Katie Martin
CEO
Elegance & Simplicity
US Green Wedding Consortium
US Couture Wedding Consortium