The Green Wedding Series: Gifts and favours
Eco-friendly wedding gifts and favours
Even if you’re a “no gifts” kind of couple, a lot of guests instinctively want to get you something to celebrate your wedding - it’s a tradition that’s hard to shake. However, it’s also a really easy way to put something great back into the world. The same can be said for favours, instead of leaving place settings littered with items that guests drunkenly forget about, opt for a more meaningful gesture instead.
Lyndsey Goddard
Charity donations
You can ask guests to make a charity donation in lieu of a gift. It’s a super personal decision to decide which charity you want to support so below are just a few tips and ideas to get you started.
If you want to help a local charity then Local Giving is a good website to look at. You can search via postcode to bring up charities near to you. These are typically small scale charities and you’re more likely to be able to track how your donations are spent so you can see how you and your guests have helped and include it in your thank you cards.
You can also direct guests to a charity gift catalogue so they can buy specific items for people in need, Oxfam Unwrapped and Good Gifts have several gift vouchers at a variety of prices.
Another option is to go through a wedding list provider like Prezola who offer a specific charity wedding list, they have 100 charities to choose from or you can create a custom charity fund for a cause that’s special to you. You can also set something up yourself using a site like Just Giving, and ask guests to donate directly to that.
On a personal note, we’re supporters of Girls Not Brides, a global partnership committed to ending child marriage. They work with Global Giving to run numerous grassroots projects to help empower and educate girls.
It’s worth pointing out that tax relief (Gift Aid) is only applicable when donations go to a registered charity, so if you’re raising money to help a specific individual this won’t apply unless it goes through an affiliated charity first.
The Hendrys
wedding Favours
For a double whammy of wedding goodness give back with easy to use seed bombs, bee saviour cards, charity seed packets or tree planting. Pick your own bird seed mixes for each guest with the brilliantly named PeckAMix, buy potted succulents or herbs to be grown at home or replanted by your guests, support a local honey or jam business with a mini pot for each guest, recyclable packets of fair trade coffee beans or tea leaves for a morning after pick me up, the list goes on and can be personal to you as a couple but still do good!
