One of the biggest challenges of planning a wedding is considering your carbon footprint. Almost no large-scale event, whether it is a wedding or a music festival, has a neutral impact on the environment.
From travel costs to get to the wedding, to wasted food and decor, it is challenging to avoid making a negative impact on your big day. Luckily, the industry is catching on and more and more venues are offering zero-waste packages for hosting a wedding.
What does it look like to have a sustainable wedding? It is more than finding out ways to be zero-waste, but finding a venue that follows your mission and vision. Ideally, you want to have minimal decorations, locally sourced catering, and a venue that takes on the zero-waste clean-up initiative to restore the venue. When in doubt, always find an organization to pick up the leftover food and make it easy on yourself by saying no to one-time use decorations.
Check out these top sustainable wedding venues to help your zero-waste wedding vision come true.
Wild Basin Lodge, Colorado
If a zero-waste wedding is what you desire, the Wild Basin Lodge has already worked out the logistics. They have a zero-waste wedding package that includes sustainable transportation of shuttles for guests, donating leftover food and even sustainable menus through their in-house vendors, which is a major green flag for a venue.
Not to mention that this Valley with views of Rocky Mountain National Park will make the perfect backdrop to your wedding photos year-round.
The Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix Arizona
If you love the desert, this venue is perfect for your wedding aesthetic. A botanical garden surrounded by cacti means you need very little to no decoration when the surroundings are so beautiful.
Plus, the venue takes care of clean-up. Do check the weather for this venue to make sure you plan your wedding neither when it is too hot, or too cold.
Agriturismo II Rigo, Tuscany, Italy
If you have always dreamed of having your wedding under the Tuscan sun, your eco-friendly vision can come true at the Agriturismo II Rigo organic farm. This intimate venue is only interested in hosting slow weddings, meaning no more than 50 people and slow referring to the wedding preparation in ways that are compatible with the ecology of the site.
You can expect a menu with food grown locally, getting married with the rolling hills in the backdrop while enjoying your reception in organic gardens under the evening stars.
Puntacana Resort & Club, The Bahamas
Puntacana Resort & Club has allocated a lot of funds to ecotourism and initiatives to protect the natural reserves all while sharing it responsibly with those who come and visit it.
Your guests will have plenty of eco-friendly activities to do from diving responsibly in the coral reef, to playing golf on the worm-composted course and bee reserves full of natural honey. You can expect this resort to take care of your sustainable vision.
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall is gorgeous from its antique high ceilings to the elegant staircases and decor, in the heart of San Francisco. This is the perfect venue because there is a no decor policy, while weddings are generally small due to the size of the venue space available, which also helps ensure that the wedding can comply with sustainable initiatives such as zero-waste.
The Beach
A beach wedding is a no decor event, simply gathering with your friends on the beach for a ceremony. It is okay to set up chairs and an altar, as long as you take it with you afterward. Hire a food truck to cater your reception, that way you don't have to worry about leftover foods and as long as you clearly mark waste containers, you are doing pretty well in terms of keeping the event zero-waste.
Your Backyard
What is more sustainable than having a wedding in your backyard? That way you don't have to put your trust in a venue or vendors to make zero-waste choices, you can control it yourself.
Follow the basics by keeping one-time use decor to a minimum, or eliminate it, and make sure to donate any extra foods.
A National Park
For the most part, you can get a permit to hold an event at any National Park across the U.S. and the best part about this is the events are censored in a way that prevents too many people, you can only be there for certain hours and clean-up is essential.
Because it is a protected area, you can be sure that there will be no impact left on the park plus all event details must comply with your permit. This ensures that you, your guests and vendors keep the party at a level that respects the environment, and leaves it as it was.
