When high-school sweethearts Alicia Gomer and Mark Wittink got engaged in December 2001, they pledged that their wedding would reflect their commitment to ecological issues. Gomer, who is working on an M.S. in environmental science policy, and Wittink, a project director at the Resource Conservation Alliance in Washington, D.C., were “shocked at the lack of green options in wedding planning. We had no idea what a consumptive, high-impact industry weddings can be,” Gomer says.
About 2.4 million couples get married every year in the U.S., at an average cost of $20,000 per wedding, generating total revenues of some $70 billion, according to theknot.com, an online wedding resource. “Since you’ll probably spend more on your wedding than any other single expenditure except your car or home, it’s a chance to support and open markets for local, organic, recycled, and recyclable goods,” says Eric Brown, communications director for the Center for a New American Dream. Michelle Kozin, founder of Organicweddings.com, a full-service, green-wedding-planning company, agrees. “You have a captive audience you can influence with your choices,̶... Read more
