It's Not Easy Being Green

...Or so it used to be in the wedding world. These days, however, there are increasingly diverse ways to incorporate eco-friendly elements into your wedding day.

As today is Earth Day, as well as Wedding Wednesday here at Under A Paper Moon, I wanted to focus on one of the companies that is making it easier to bring "green" into the bridal world of white.


Certainly no stranger in the wedding industry, Olivia Luca is a Portland, Oregon-based company specializing in customizable bridal attire and putting an emphasis on environmental and social responsibility. All designs are sewn in Portland to people paid living wages.


Some of Olivia Luca's environmentally sustainable practices include donating fabric scraps to groups who can use them, helping support alternative/renewable energy through their utility service providers, recycling and using recycled paper products as much as possible (something you know I love!)


Through Olivia Luca's design studio, a client can design her own dress by selecting from available bodice and skirt styles, as well as choosing fabric type and color in addition to other details.


Among their many fabric offerings are several eco-friendly fabrics, including organic cotton sateen, hemp/silk charmeuse, hempcel, organic linen, soy knit, bamboo/organic cotton knit, organic printed cotton, as well as fair trade handwoven silk shantung and fair trade handwoven silk organza.

In addition to dressing brides, Olivia Luca offers garments and accessories to clothe an entire wedding party from dresses for bridesmaids, mothers,and flower girls to ties and vests for ring bearers and groomsmen.

All images via Olivia Luca

Whether outfitting your wedding party in eco-friendly clothing, using recycled paper products, hosting your wedding during daylight hours to cut down on the use of electricity, holding your ceremony and reception at the same location to reduce driving, or serving food made with locally-grown ingredients, there are many ways you can help to make your event a little more eco-friendly.

Your wedding day is one filled with commitment, as you look forward to a long life shared with your spouse, and it's a perfect time to commit to helping care for the Earth too.

Put A Cork In It

I considered cork as an option for my kitchen when I was replacing the floor, and although I didn't select it, I still adore the idea of cork floors and would be thrilled to have one at some point. I love that cork is an eco-friendly product and that there's such a wide variety of styles to be found.

Domino

Wicanders

Duro Design

Apartment Therapy

Domino

Country Living

Country Living

Country Living

While I love the idea of cork floors, I looove the idea of cork walls. It adds such warmth to rooms, as evident in the photos below. It would be fabulous to have an entire cork wall in a studio where I could pin inspirational images 'til my heart's content.

And, of course, cork would be a very wise decision for dampening sound from a certain large dog who enjoys a good bark now and again (don't worry, Itchy, I am not naming names.)

Domino

Domino

Globus Cork

Our Wedding Invitations {an eco-friendly challenge}

I have mentioned before that I designed and hand-screened our wedding invitations, and in honor of the eco-friendly giveaway, I thought I would share our invitations with you on this week's Wedding Wednesday.

Early on, in our quest to select paper for the invitations, I'd decided I wanted the paper we used to be recycled. I loved the look of kraft paper and wanted to find a paper in the same colorway that would be a softer, finer paper, suitable for invititations, which was also made of recycled content.

My mom and I set out on a major search to find that paper, and a lot of what we found was just a little off; either the color wasn't right, the paper was rough, or -gasp- it wasn't recycled. My mom was fully in agreement when the color was wrong or the paper quality was too poor. Yet, when she discovered a beautiful, soft paper that was the right color, but wasn't recycled, I think my mom wanted to pull her hair out when I said I was sticking by my "must be recycled" declaration.

Using recycled paper was an easy way I could see to make our wedding slightly more eco-friendly, and I couldn't give up on the idea. So I didn't, and we persisted. After much searching, my mom found a paper that met all the requirements!


As evident in the photo above and those below, just a few of the many taken during the process, our invitations were a bit of an endeavour. We started making the invitations just after E had arrived home from his deployment to Afghanistan, and I am not entirely positive that he didn't wish he'd come home a week or two later.


My mom drove down from Tennessee for a week, and the three of us worked almost around the clock to complete the hand-screening of our invitations. I joked that I was running a sweatshop, and I think they were ready to mutiny about halfway through the week. At one point, probably running on three hours of sleep from the night before, even I questioned why I had thought DIY-ing so many different elements was a good idea.


We sent out a little over 200 invitations; multiply each of our nine (or, Mom was it 11??) elements by 200+, and, well, we had a lot of pieces and needed a lot of space for drying! E rigged up clothes lines throughout the house and garage; it was rather comical to watch as we tip-toed through rooms and ducked under lines, being very careful to not disturb the prints before the ink had dried.


After all the pieces had dried, we still had much assembly (and addressing!) to do. My mom took almost half home with her, where my brothers and dad were roped into the process too. They completed their group, while E and I worked devotedly on ours.

In the end, our invitations turned out to be a true labor of love, one we all agreed was well-worth it.

{click on any of the pictures to enlarge them}

*Remember, you have until 11:59 pm CST tomorrow (Thursday) night to enter the Delight.com giveaway!

'Tis the Season

While I love many different times of the year, December is my most favorite month by far. I love the holidays for so many reasons, and one of the things I love most about them is being able to give to others.

In the spirit of giving, I am thrilled to announce I've partnered with Delight.com for a holiday giveaway! If you aren't already familiar with Delight.com, they have an endless selection of charming products, with a strong emphasis on eco-friendly items. They also feature a new item daily in their section "Today's Delight," which is discounted for a 24-hour period and is updated at lunchtime each afternoon.


Courtesy of Delight.com, I have three of these adorable Ecojot Happy Owl notebooks up for grabs; they are 100% recycled and recyclable. The paper was made in a mill that uses biogas (recovered landfill gases) as their alternative power source, and the glues and inks are vegetable-based and biodegradable! Does it get much better than that?


To enter visit Delight.com, and then come back by Thursday, Dec. 4th 11:59 p.m. CST and leave me a comment here to let me know which of their eco-friendly items are your favorite. Also, I'd love if you'd tell me the easiest change you have made or intend to make to live more eco-friendly. Make sure you include a valid email address as well as your first name and the first initial of your last name.

These are some of my favorite eco-friendly items that they carry.

I'm Not A Paper Cup, RuMe Reusable Holiday Gift Wrap

Delight.com is also offering a 15% discount to all readers of Under A Paper Moon! Between today, December 1st, and December 9th, enter the code MoonDelight, which is case sensitive, when you checkout to take advantage of this deal.

*Delight.com only ships to the US, Canada, the UK, and Germany, so winners must have an address in one of these countries. I am so sorry that all my other international readers won't be able to participate in this! I promise, I will make it up to you somehow!

Remember, you have until Thursday at 11:59 p.m. CST to enter, and I will announce the winners on Friday!