5 Ways To "Green" Your Wedding Welcome Gifts

Having been born in the 1970's and growing up in the 1980's, I often feel that I have witnessed, in my life, two different worlds. One was a world unaware or uninformed about the fragility of our environment and the other is hypersensitive to it and in a mode of action and passion to preserve our world. 

Perhaps it is because I now have a child and I wonder what the world will be like when she's my age, but I often think about the world in which I grew up. The world before "environmentalism" was a household word. When we put the garbage out on the sidewalk, it was only one can (unless you had a lot of trash!), and it was any old can at that! I remember going to McDonald's and receiving my hamburger in a styrofoam clamshell. I left the water on while I brushed my teeth, and, let the shower run until it got hot enough to warm not only me, but the floor of the tub before jumping in! Lightbulbs were all incandescent. At the gas station, you had to tell the clerk if you wanted "regular" or "unleaded". Yes, there was LEADED gasoline for purchase!

These days, we are assigned cans for our trash, recycling, and composting, and sorting has become second nature, even if we still get confused sometimes. Styrofoam clamshells are long gone, and leaving the water running is a SIN. And, when you are running out to the store to buy your COMPACT FLORESCENT lightbulbs, you stop at the gas station to purchase unleaded gas only, or maybe you don't even need gas because you just unplugged your car from its electrical outlet in the garage!

The point of all this is habits. We used to do things a certain way, and now, to save the environment, we need to do things differently. All aspects of life are affected, including weddings. Where we once would use lavish amounts of disposable resources, we are now re-thinking throwing a large event with a little more consideration for the environment. 

Wedding welcome gifts are no exception. Instead of being wasteful and giving your guests paper bags, plastic water bottles, and disposable tissues, here are five ideas to be more conservative:

1. THE CONTAINER

Like everything in our "paperless world" Welcome Gifts often include at least a little bit of paper in the form of a note or tags on the goodies, or labels, etc. This is another area where you can "green" your gifts. Many paper manufacturers now offer papers with some degree of recycled content. Check out your local vendors or even get creative and reuse items you already have!