FEATURE: Ethical Weddings #2

Internet overload
Ever since university, I have been addicted to the Internet. It is my first port of call for all queries, conundrums, or simple curiosity and finding out how to have an ethical wedding was no different. So I sat down at my computer and typed it in: e t h i c a l w e d d i n g s back in 2004 and I’m afraid I can’t remember exactly what Google served up on that occasion, however…

I don’t believe it! This is awful! I just meant to take a look to see what came up when you type in ‘ethical weddings’ now in 2006 and have just spent the last hour and a half (possibly more) scrolling and surfing through acres of information, leaping from link to link, bookmarking pages for potential suppliers and emailing other ethical bloggers! ‘My name is Katie and I am an Internetaholic’.

Anyway, to get back to the matter in hand, that is exactly how this all began two years ago. My incessant searching quickly showed me that while quite a lot was happening on the ethical nuptials front in the USA (e.g. www.organicweddings.com, www.idofoundation.org) of which there will be more in later posts but there wasn’t so much out there for the Blighty-based bride.

There was a lot of information, too much information (the magic word ‘wedding’ being largely responsible for this) but so much of it was irrelevant or linked to adverts that on further inspection had nothing to do with weddings, ethical or otherwise!

It required a considerable amount of extra digging and inspired word combinations to unearth the purveyors of beach diamond engagement rings or the Dorset organic wrap maker, as we were later to do.

Often I would become very frustrated or simply too tired (at 2 in the morning) to carry on searching. I assumed that my fiancé and I were not alone in our search for an ethical wedding. We imagined other newly engaged couples trying to do the right thing but ultimately finding the task too taxing and time-consuming. Especially at a time when there are so many other things to plan, organise and think about in an ordinary way, let alone in an ethical way.

And so, only a month or two into the planning of our own wedding, www.ethicalweddings.com was born. Wouldn’t it be great, we thought, to have all the resources and suppliers you need to have an ethical wedding just there, at your fingertips in one web-based directory? Of course it would! I typed the address into the address bar – nothing. I mentioned the idea to my family that night. The next day my dad emailed me, he had bought the domain name for me! No hanging about there then; Ethical Weddings was go!

Join me next time when I check out the resources I found that helped me develop the idea of ethical weddings and gave me some contacts and things to think about.

Katie
www.ethicalweddings.com

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