When my fiancée and I got engaged, we knew we wanted to celebrate our relationship in the company of our loved ones. As a climate journalist and a scientist interested in sustainability, we also knew we didn’t want our wedding to cause a lot of harm to the environment and climate.
Planning a wedding is fun, but it can quickly spiral out of control. Pinterest boards push dramatic tablescapes, Instagram says you’ve got to gather your girls in an exotic location for your bachelorette weekend, and your mom’s cousin’s girlfriend expects you to provide guests with disposable flip flops for dancing.
Weddings can be beautiful, fun, affordable, and environmentally friendly, but that doesn’t happen by chance. You have to commit to it. The average U.S. wedding generates roughly 56 tons of carbon pollution. That’s over three times the amount the average American produces in a year and almost nine times more than the global average per person.
In addition to climate-warming pollution, weddings generate a lot of food and single-use plastic waste — by some estimates, the average wedding generates 400 pounds of waste.
Kiira Portet is a wedding planner in Seattle, Washington, who began prioritizing eco-friendly wedding practices after working for a luxury planning company.
