| |
|
The wedding industry is blazing a trail into the “green” jungle, but few brides are following.
Proportional to the time taken by the ceremony and reception, the average wedding consumes more resources than any other event. Weddings require large quantities of food, flowers, paper goods and travel fuel. Because of this highly consumptive nature, the wedding industry has unsurprisingly taken the step towards more eco-friendly alternatives. Today, an eco-conscious bride has more choices before her than ever when it comes to making green decisions. Thanks to eco-friendly wedding service providers, a bride can send her invitations on recycled paper, eat organic food on biodegrabable plates, toss an organic bouquet and wear a gown made of natural fibers.
But even given the wide variety of options, the wedding industry has not heard much clamor for green glamour. Tabitha Harville, a wedding planner from Dallas-based Your Engagement and Beyond, researched eco-friendly alternatives, such as invitations and napkins made from pressed flower paper, thinking they would be in demand since “everyone’s gone a bit green.” However, her expectations have so far gone unfulfilled. Likewise, although Naomi Peters, owner of Blush Couture bridal shop in Dallas, has heard of the trend, she said there hasn’t been any consumer buzz.
Two questions come to mind: First, if there is a relative lack of demand for eco-friendly weddings, why is there so much supply? Second, why aren’t more brides going green?
In response to the first question, more and more people who own businesses providing for the bridal crowd are bringing their personal beliefs about the environment to the workplace. Jeanette Prasifka, who runs Dallas-based Crosby Catering and Coffee, has been a vegetarian since the age of 16. She serves only vegetarian or vegan food. In providing this earth friendly fare, Prasifka, who “wouldn’t know how to prepare meat if it was put in front of [her],” is reducing what she calls the horrible impact on the environment of the meat industry.
Florist Andrea Bailey’s eco-friendly attitude has also influenced her business decisions. After hearing about such scandals as Filipino flower farmers being relegated to barracks-like housing, Bailey became more discriminating in her choice of flower suppliers for Bailey Flowers, her shop in Arlington. She explains, “[I have] chosen farms based on how they deal with pesticides and the improvements they’ve made to the surrounding areas.” And while she may have to pay anywhere from 75 cents to a dollar more per flower, she believes “it’s worth it for the overall benefits.”
Paying extra may be worth it to Bailey, but the expensive reality of eco-friendly options may be sufficient to deter popular demand. With regard to food, organic fare, says Prasifka, “drives a higher price.” Biodegradable dinnerware, made of rice or potato starch, costs more than traditional disposables.
Judy McAlvey, owner of and dress designer for Just for you Custom Creations, located in DeSoto, also knows that “cost comes into play” if a bride wants a natural wedding dress. Real silk is a natural option for gowns, but because silk making is so labor-intensive, a dress made from the material can cost upwards of $2,000. This is well beyond the $500-$1,000 price range for a traditional wedding dress.
Tradition also suppresses demand for eco-friendly alternatives. It particularly gets in the way of Lora Simonds’s customers. Simonds’s store, Fabrique! in Richardson, specializes in bridal fabrics and carries cloth made of organic fibers, including cotton, bamboo, and hemp. However, because organic excludes the use of dyes, these materials are a shade of grayish beige, says Simonds. Even the greenest bride wants a white wedding dress. An organic cloth appropriate for a wedding gown hasn’t appeared yet, but Simonds assures, “if it came across our desk, we would get it.”
Convention has kept eco-consciousness from being a major factor in the honeymoon field as well. While Candice Fillingim is “personally trying to be eco-friendly,” her clients at All About Honeymoons in Fort Worth prefer exotic destinations such as Mexico or the Caribbean islands—countries where conservation is not a top priority. Despite this disinterest, Fillingim mentions, “you can buy cards that counteract your carbon impact [from traveling]. That’s now an option with a lot of honeymoon packages.” The cards are known as carbon offsets, which represent metric tons of carbon dioxide produced by travelling. The sales fund eco-friendly measures, such as planting trees, that theoretically neutralize one’s less-than-green actions.
Another long-standing wedding tradition is the outdoor wedding. “A lot [of couples] dreamed of an outside wedding,” says Lee Ann Nave, event coordinator of the Clark Gardens in Mineral Wells. However, she said that engaged couples usually book the garden for romantic appeal rather than the environmental benefits. While the Gardens employ a wide multitude of conservational practices such as mulch piles, solar panels, rainwater collection pools and hand watering, this eco-friendliness is not a key advertising point. Maybe it should be.
Wendy Weatherford of Bliss, a Fort Worth bridal salon, believes it’s not enough for wedding service providers to merely employ eco-friendly practices. Wedding businesses “need to put it in front of [consumers]. They just don’t know that it’s an option,” she said. With the number of eco-friendly entrepreneurs in the industry, it shouldn’t be long before brides have a better awareness of their green alternatives.
For better or worse, the wedding industry is leading the way down a greener path. Whenever more brides are ready follow, eco-conscious business owners will be ready for them
Click here to return to Crosby in the News.
|
|
