Sustainability is the next big thing, and rightly so. There are many ways to make sure your wedding is kind to the earth. One particular South African wedding venue, Cederkloof Botanical Retreat, helps you do this easily.
This farm is located just outside Citrusdal, a quiet and tranquil space set in a beautiful valley. Part of the landscape is still wild and opens to numerous views with beautiful rock formations from where you can watch stunning moon rises and have the stars put on a show just for you.
Their vision for a more sustainable village is varied and they are concentrating on the hard and soft elements of sustainability, covering aspects of social, environmental and financial health for a kinder, gentler, restorative and resilient future.
To learn more about all their current projects, take a look here.
Here’s how they will make your wedding sustainable:
– All flowers and green decorations are recycled on-site.
– Flowers, greens, fillers and other decorations are picked from the gardens and the surrounding areas.
– Couples plant trees or sponsor a ceder tree planting as part of their ceremony.
– The outdoor wedding ceremonies and the natural setting gives the couple and the guests the opportunity to spend the entire weekend immersed in nature.
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– Natural, organic and no-waste confetti are made from plants from the gardens.
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– The accommodation, venue and ceremony spaces are close together, so there is no driving once on the retreat.
– All glass is recycled on-site.
– All organic waste from the kitchens are recycled on-site.
If you want to have an environmentally friendly wedding, there are a number of things you can do. Other ways of reducing your carbon footprint include making sure there are no single use items, especially regarding place indicators and table numbers. Use materials that can be recycled and donate decor items and food that is left over afterwards. You can also rent all the decor and catering ware, instead of buying them.
It is important to remember that eco-friendliness doesn’t start and stop at the wedding. Participate in ethical ring shopping (do research on companies who can prove that they don’t engage in “blood diamonds”) and incorporate green tourism in your honeymoon.
Try to find a wedding gown to hire, instead of buying one or letting a new one be made. If you do end up having one made, try to make sure the designer is eco-friendly and uses sustainable production methods.
Picture: Pixabay
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The bridal procession do not often get more attention than the bride, but this wedding’s flower girls were exceptional and truly attention-worthy. Lyndsey Raby and her new husband, Tanner, felt so privileged to have their grandmothers present at their Tennesee wedding ceremony that they went a step further and asked them to be the flower girls.
“I knew as soon as I was engaged, I wanted to involve my grandmothers,” Lyndsey told the Huffington Post.
The beaming bunch included Tanner’s gran Joyce Raby (70), Lyndsey’s two grandmothers, Betty Brown (72) and Wanda Grant (76), and even her great-grandmother 90-year-old Kathleen Brown.
“I do believe they were more excited than my bridesmaids,” Lyndsey added.
These matriarchs are an integral part of both Lyndsey and Tanner’s families and have a great influence on their lives. Lyndsey said that she felt honoured to have them at the wedding and encourages other couples to do the same. “I felt so blessed to have them all here so I wanted them to be involved.”
Traditionally, the flower girls at the wedding are the cousins or nieces of the couple, and mostly they are little children. Of course, there’s no reason why the bride can’t skip a few generations! What a special moment.
Picture: Natalie Caho Photography
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A South African couple forewent tradition by requesting financial donations to help pay off Rhodes University students’ fee debts instead of wedding gifts when they got married earlier this month.
James Rycroft and Toni Parsons are both Rhodes alumni. They each received a one-year bursary award from the English Olympiad and both went on to read for a Bachelor of Arts degree with English as a major, which is how they met in 2001.
“We lost touch after graduating and it was through Facebook that we reconnected. We met again in 2016 through our dear friend Natasha, and got engaged in 2018 in Esizindeni, near Coffee Bay, during our December cross-country road trip,” they said.
The couple got married in Southbroom on the Kwa-Zulu Natal south coast at the beginning of October 2019.
The couple spoke to their alma mater to explain that their request for financial aid for students was inspired by a fellow old Rhodian and friend, Natasha Joseph, who has been running an annual call for contributions to clear students’ fee accounts since 2017.
“Earning a degree is often a key life moment for a young person and we felt strongly about directing our community resources to helping a few young people at the university to graduate,” said James.
Toni added: “We believe that earning a degree should not be inhibited by your [in]ability to pay. A degree from a quality institution like Rhodes University can lead to serious opportunities when you enter the world of work. The contributions made by our community are intended in that spirit – to help those students who are unable to graduate, not because they did not meet academic standards, but because they were unable to raise the cash.”
Rhodes University Vice Chancellor, Dr Sizwe Mabizela accepted the couple’s gift and thanked them in a letter with these words.
“This has impacted me deeply. It proves, once again, the calibre and well-roundedness of our graduates. At a time when young couples would normally and naturally only think of their own comfort and improving their lives, they have both actioned a social purpose and are living proof of our alumni.”
Picture: Rhodes University
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A bride’s bouquet has sentimental value and so it is not surprising that many brides want to keep it. Preserving your bouquet is a beautiful way to create a reminder of your wedding day and add some decor to your home at the same time.
If you’d like to have a personal keepsake from your wedding that is different to the norm, take a look at these 3 ways to preserve your bouquet.
Air dry your bouquet
This is the most simple and traditional way to preserve your bouquet as it was on your wedding day, but it will take the longest.
All you have to do is take your entire bouquet, or just the flowers that you’d like to keep and tie it together very tightly with a rope or string of your choice – twine will work very well. Once you are sure that the bouquet is tied tightly and securely, hang the whole bunch upside down in a warm and dry area, like a cupboard. A darker space will preserve the colour and scent of the flowers, although the colour will be slightly muted, better than a space that allows light in, which will cause the colours to turn into shades that look vintage. Leave the bouquet to dry for a few weeks and then take it down once all the flowers are completely dry.
Now that you have your dried bouquet, you can do with it as you wish. A nice idea to display the bouquet is to place it in a vase of your choice and cover it with a large glass dome or a perspex case.
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Press the flowers
This is probably the most affordable option when it comes to preserving your bouquet but it will involve you creating a new piece from the flowers from your bouquet.
Choose the flowers that you’d like to preserve and cut about 1-2cm off and spread them out on one or multiple sheets of baking paper, depending on how many flowers you are wanting to press. Place the sheet with the flowers on the inside of a heavy book and add another layer of baking paper on top, then close the book and place another heavy object on top to weigh it down. Leave the flowers there for one to two weeks. Once the flowers are dry and flat, be careful when you start to arrange them as they are very delicate.
Most people create a frame display of the flowers by putting them into an empty photo frame and then hanging it on the wall as decor. Now every time you walk past it you will be reminded of your special day.
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Use epoxy resin
With this preservation technique, you will be able to show off your flowers to their full effect as the shape of the flowers will remain the same.
Choose flowers with tight petals from your bouquet and hang them to dry. If you do not allow them to dry properly before setting them in epoxy, they may begin to decay once they have been set. Then cover your work area with newspaper and make sure you wear gloves when you work because epoxy sticks to everything. Choose a mould in your desired shape and make sure that you have enough epoxy resin to cover the flowers as well as create your desired shape. Fill your mold halfway with the epoxy resin mixture and delicately arrange the flowers within that. Then fill in the rest of the mold with the mixture and leave to dry.
After you take the mold off, you will have a stunning decoration, or a few if you do this multiple times, that you can place all over your home and have constant reminders of your wedding.
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Feature image: Pixabay