In which I face the all too familiar conflict between environmental stewardship and the need to remain within a budget.
According to Green Bride Guide, a typical American wedding generates 400-600 pounds of waste. This includes everything from invitations, to single use clothes, to imported and/or pesticide laden flowers, to multiple garbage bags filled with compostable food scraps and recyclable products.
We’re doing our part to be abnormal here. Today’s agonizing decision? Do we buy paper products and plastic cutlery for the reception or rent them from a vendor? You can guess which is cheaper. (I did find compostable plates which cost almost exactly the same as if we rented dinner plates from a local vendor. See photo.) We are buying root beer from a company within 25 miles. The flowers will be picked the day before the wedding from nearby FiveFork Organic Farm and placed in old mason jars. We intend to compost food scraps and recycle the drink bottles.
I recently finished reading Growing a Feast by Kurt Timmermeister. Kurt feeds people for a living. Over the course of a year, he decided that he would raise or grow everything that he needed for an exquisite dinner party for twenty (with the exception of coffee, sugar, wheat, and wine). While I can’t imagine reordering my life to replicate this feat, I continue to inch toward living as responsibly as possible. This means wrestling with everyday decisions about how we spend our money—and doing so without judging those who make different decisions.
Final choice? We’re going with the real plates, cutlery, and linens.
For those of you on pins and needles wondering about the efficacy of the garlic juice (placed on the lawn yesterday to eradicate mosquitoes), you’ll have to live in that tension until next Wednesday when I apply the second coat. The yard definitely had a lingering garlic odor this afternoon.
Today’s pleasant surprise? Our next door neighbor took pity on me weeding along the driveway and brought her tools over to help. Her garden is an inspiration, often providing materials for many of my photos. Thanks Sue Roper!
For those of you interested in learning more about how to live as responsible stewards, may I suggest Planted by Leah Kostamo and this article I wrote for Relevant.