FEATURE: Ethical Weddings #3

Let’s Get Ethical!
I wrote last time about my struggle to find what I now know does not yet exist in the UK: an online ethical wedding suppliers directory, and how this led to the setting up of www.ethicalweddings.com.

This week, however, I want to talk about the resources that I did find helpful – and that might be of use to those of you out there planning ethical weddings at the moment!

The issues surrounding an ethical wedding – or any ethical celebration – are not new. In my first post, I mentioned Oscar Wilde’s short story ‘The Young King’ as the inspiration for Ethical Weddings (you can read the story online here) – and that was published in 1891!

Over the last few years, the press surrounding this concept has grown rapidly. However, one of the first articles I came across when planning my own wedding was on Get Ethical, a site that combines fair trade online shopping with in-depth discussion of a whole range of ethical issues. The reason for this was quite simple; as I said in my last post, I sat down at the computer, typed in ‘ethical weddings’ and up popped Get Ethical’s ‘Tying the Ethical Knot’ post.

This article acts as a very useful checklist for anyone planning an ethical wedding as it takes the reader through every aspect of the big day – ethically! It also kick-started me into action with its opening comment that ‘we are leaving the huge organisational process up to you’ leaving me thinking: I could do that!

NOTE: Don’t try the Google route that I went down as Get Ethical have had a revamp lately and the Google link now takes you to somewhere completely different! And please have patience with the hyperlinks in the article; Get Ethical know that I am blogging about them and are busily reconnecting them as I type. (If you want them now, let me know as I have found most of them myself).

The Guardian, The Observer, and The Independent, with their regular spotlights on ethical issues, have been another very useful source of information. Indeed, the next entry that should now appear on your Google search is the Observer’s article of February 20th 2005, 'With this conflict-free diamond, I thee wed'. The article is an inspirational account of an ethical wedding with contributions from big players in the wedding ‘industry’ such as confetti.co.uk, ‘You and Your Wedding’, and ‘Brides’ magazine emphasising the extent to which the concept of an ethical wedding has entered the mainstream consciousness.

An earlier Guardian article, ‘My big fat green wedding’ is also an interesting read, focusing on the possibilities of going carbon neutral by supporting schemes such as Future Forests.

To get bang up-to-date, why not check out The Independent’s article from last month, ‘How to have a green wedding’.

Other publications that have covered ethical weddings include the new monthly, ‘Organic Life’, and ‘Lifestyle Green’, which covered our own wedding!

You might also like to take a look at:

White dress, but a green wedding

The Eco-Wedding: Saving the Earth, one vow at a time

Non-Traditional Ideas for Wedding Gifts

and last but not least, The Eco-Friendly Wedding

The point of this post is to direct you to resources that hopefully will be both inspirational and useful. Our eventual intention is that Ethical Weddings will have an online library of such articles and will write or commission further articles on specific ethical wedding related issues. If you know of or have written any articles that you think would be particularly relevant, we would be very pleased to hear from you.

In my next post find out what I reckon are the top ten key issues surrounding ethical weddings.

Katie
www.ethicalweddings.com

Technorati tags:
cityhippy
green
wedding
ethical
organic
fairtrade
diamond
engagement
fiance
marriage
committment
vow