Have you ever thought about how much waste a wedding produces? It’s okay if you haven’t, I know that weddings aren’t really daily occurrences for most people. But they ARE daily occurrences. You may only have one wedding and think “Oh just this once.” But multiply that by the 2.5 million weddings that take place each year in the US alone and it adds up. In this blog I’ll proved you with some tips and tricks for having a sustainable wedding in Austin Texas.
A single wedding produces about 400-600 lbs of waste. Meaning at 2.5 million weddings per year that’s billions of pounds of waste every year! Just in the US! Yikes.
There are so many green alternatives that you can incorporate on your wedding day in order to reduce the waste it produces. And that’s what I will unpack in this blog! Plus it’s packed full of Austin vendor recommendations!
How to Have a Sustainable Wedding
What this blog covers;
- The impact your guest list can have
- What to look for in a venue with a list of eco friendly Austin venues
- Eco friendly floral design with a list of florists based out of Austin
- Ways to make your wedding attire more sustainable with resale shops located in Austin!
- What to look for when hiring your caterer with a list of eco friendly catering companies in the good ol ATX.
- Composting and recycling!
- Tips and tricks for sustainable decor with some recommended rental companies
- How to make your stationary more eco friendly
Guest List
Potentially the most effective way to cut down on waste is to have a shorter guest list. This will mean you have less invitations to send out, you wont need to provide as much food, give as many wedding favors and the list goes on.
You could even elope just the two of you if you really want to cut down on waste. I have a plethora of elopement planning resources too! Sustainability is actually a super common reason that couples choose to elope or have a smaller wedding ceremony.
Selecting a Venue
There are a lot of venue options out there! If you want a more eco-friendly venue you’ll want to look for a place that is built with sustainable or upcycled materials, uses renewable energy, that has in house catering so that you don’t have to hire a catering company to drive out to you and set up an outdoor kitchen.
It is also a good idea to choose a venue where you can hold your ceremony and your reception so you don’t have guests driving from place to place.
Eco-Friendly Wedding Venues in Austin Texas;
Barr Mansion
Barr Mansion checks off so many eco friendly boxes. They are farm to table with in house catering, certified organic, a zero waste facility, they compost their own food waste and use it to fertilize their gardens. Barr Mansion even sources electricity from solar panels as well as utilizing rainwater collected in a 40,000 gallon water tank. Barr Mansion is a very sought after venue for couples hoping to have a sustainable wedding n Austin.
Matties
Matties is a unique venue and restaurant that offers fresh, seasonal produce and other seasonal products. You can hold your ceremony and your reception at Matties and let them cater! You may even see a Peacock while you’re there
The Cedars Ranch
From Energy efficient design, through renewable energy to water conscious landscaping. The Cedars Ranch was designed around sustainability!
Rambling Rose Ranch
Rambling Rose Ranch doesn’t have in house catering but a majority of their property is built of upcycled and sustainable materials! Like their ceremony benches that originally lived at Schlitterbahn!
Chapel Dulcinea
Chapel Dulcinea is a FREE wedding venue in the hillcountry perfect for any small wedding ceremony. I say it’s eco friendly because it really doesn’t take much! You don’t need additional decor, the chapel itself is an outdoor chapel so no electricity is needed and the grounds serve multiple purposes aside from weddings!
Floral
When looking for a florist you might want to look for someone who is passionate about sustainable floral design! Using a local florist who sources local flowers is a good place to start. Choosing elements like dried florals so that you can keep and reuse them afterwards is a great way to reduce waste. Imagine keeping your dried bouquet in a vase forever!
Florists in Austin;
Wildheart Floral – Kaylie from Wildheart creates the most stunning dried floral arrangements, uses minimal floral foam and sources a lot of her flowers from local growers making them more eco friendly!
Petals Ink – Petals Ink sources all of their flowers from their very own farm, Grassdale, located here in Austin! Support local!
Attire
There are so many green alternatives when it comes to wedding attire! You can purchase wedding dresses or suits from resale shops, rent your attire or sell your own attire to those resale shops when the wedding is over!
- A great wedding dress resale shop in Austin Texas is Second Summer Bride
- A great place for renting a tux or suit for a sustainable wedding in Austin is Generation Tux
Catering
Look for caterers who provide local farm to table and in season foods. This way you will be supporting local farms!
You can also support local breweries, wineries or distilleries when selecting the drinks you’re providing.
Serve your meals with compostable, recyclable or reusable dishware!
Austin Texas Sustainable Catering Companies;
Royal Fig – From the farm to your fork!
Vegg Austin – Vegan catering
Cultured Grazing Company – Gorgeous and delicious charcuterie boards as well as tables for events served with compostable materials!
Composting and Recycling
Depending on where you are located you can hire a composting company to come out to your event and take materials to compost/recycling for you.
Event Composting in Austin Texas;
Decor
Oftentimes decor is made up of brand new materials or single use items and then thrown in the garbage when the wedding day is over. To avoid that when selecting decor for your wedding you can opt for vintage, recycled or thrifted items that you can incorporate in your home or sell when you are done. You can choose to rent your decor from a rental company. Or you can even decorate with something like live plants and then plant them in your garden when the wedding is over!
Rental Companies in Austin;
Stationary
When mailing out invitations there’s an 80% chance that most of those invites will up in the trash anyways. Tragic I know, this is coming from someone who has a box full of birthday cards they’ve collected since they were 5. Then you have signage, menus, place cards and so on. There are so many single use stationary items at weddings!
When shopping for stationary look for all natural paper products that can either be recycled or that are made from recycled materials. You can also reduce the amount of paper goods by creating a wedding website on Zola to send out on your save the dates so that way you don’t need to send out a different round of invites, RSVPs, menus and such.
Check out Botanical Paperworks for seed paper wedding invitations!
Thank you for reading!
I seriously hope that this blog gave you some good ideas for your own wedding or even leads you to your dream vendors!
If you hire any of the vendors or use any of these ideas I would love to know! You can contact me directly or tag me on Instagram.
Check out ore of my planning resources here and if you have any questions please reach out!
