Eco Wedding Venues
Your wedding is one of the most important days of your life, but in all the excitement it’s easy to forget what effect your big day will have on the environment. According to Climate Care, an organisation that offsets harmful carbon dioxide emissions, the average wedding emits around 14.5 tons of CO2, which is more than the average person creates during a whole year.
So how can you do your bit to minimise the impact your wedding has on the planet? Here are some examples of how to choose a wedding venue with the environment in mind:
Eco Wedding Venues
Choosing a wedding venue that can help you create a green wedding day is the obvious choice, such as:
- Penrhos Court Country Hotel in Herefordshire is dedicated to organic and environmentally-friendly weddings and will do all the planning for you.
- The Longhouse in Somerset was built using environmentally-friendly methods and uses geo-thermic heating, rainwater to flush the loos and solar panels to heat the water for the kitchens and hand basins.
Other ways in which wedding venues can be green is the way in which they were built; for example:
- Gate Street Barn in Surrey was built using wood from oak trees lost on its working, organic farm during the great storm of 1987.
Cut Down On Wedding Day Travel
Although choosing a specialist green wedding venue may seem like the best option, the main consideration when trying to have a more environmentally friendly wedding is travel. Try to choose a wedding and reception venue in the same place or very close to each other so that guests don’t have to make lots of car journeys:
- Wasing Park in Berkshire is a good example as it has a parish church and a civil wedding/partnership venue all within walking distance of its reception venue.
Wedding Reception Food and Drink
It’s not just your venue that can reduce your wedding’s carbon footprint; your wedding caterer can help too. For example, the specialist wedding catering and events company Galloping Gourmet:
- Supplies local food and ales whenever possible
- Recycles glass and cardboard
- Champions in-house recycling glass systems and is exploring ways to convert empty bottles and broken glassware into eco-sand
- Has invested in Pure Water systems at several wedding venues. The all-in-one-system filters chill and bottle local mains water, and the stylish bottles can be sterilised and used time and time again
- Invests in state of the art eco-rated kitchen equipment and appliances
Food for thought!
Article by Wedding Venue Advisor Tania Barnes
Images Courtesy of:
Wedding Ceremony at Gate Street Barn: Shooting Hip
Chef: Paul Willetts Photography
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