I am a self-described responsible citizen. On most days, I’m a vegetarian. I regularly shop at the farmer’s market, pay embarrassing amounts of money for milk, and ride my bike everywhere. In making these choices, I believe that I’m somehow making life better for the small farmer and the shop around the corner. So, when my fiancé and I decided to tie the knot, I wanted these lifestyle choices to spillover into the party we wanted to throw. Vegetarian food, check. Local produce, check. Flowers, well, flowers weren’t so easy.
I had heard of the slow flower movement, which had recently gained attention with Debra Prinzing‘s 2012 book, The 50 Mile Bouquet. Like the slow food movement, the slow flower movement encourages supporting local flower farmers. In the quest for my own, local flowers, I slowly discovered that many brides-to-be in the blogosphere have adopted the slow flower philosophy. This is a world in which women vie to have their wedding pictures accepted onto top blogs, and the eco-chic bride reigns as queen, at least for this season. I wanted in.
A surefire way to wedding-blog-acceptance is buying directly from a farm in your neighborhood. Putting potted plants in front of your guests is also a favorite option. A rarity indeed is the bride who plans ahead and grows her flowers herself. Nevertheless, the ordinary eco-chic bride buys her flowers from a sustainable florist.
There’s a catch to that, however. These self-proclaimed sustainable florists don’t all adhere to one single notion of “sustainable”. Veriflora, the authoritative certification on organic flowers, is expensive for small flower farmers to obtain, and it does not assure that your flowers have not been flown into the US from, say, Columbia. Or, you bought your flowers from a Washington farmer, but the bulbs came from the Netherlands. I wondered if putting a couple bins of soil at the center of our tables would get me into this elite club of eco-chic brides.
All of this confusion over what is sustainable and what isn’t doesn’t seem to deter the online wedding media from chronicling the adventures of well-meaning brides. And honestly, it hasn’t stopped me from checking out a few every once in a while. Entertainment is a powerful thing, isn’t it?
Here are some cute-sy eco-chic weddings:
A sylvan celebration, set in a vignette out of the novel Tuck Everlasting
These two took campy to a whole new level.
Brava! This wedding came to the source of the blooms: an herb farm! No cutting necessary.