Thursday, May 7, 2009

Guest Blogger: Bridal Opulence is a Nashville-based, wedding coordinator who offers services ranging from full planning to day of wedding coordination.

More & more brides are becoming very eco chic when planning their wedding! In fact, Nashville brides are leading the pack when incorporating eco friendly decor and materials to make a huge impact on their wedding carbon footprint.

What’s a carbon footprint? A carbon footprint is the measure of impact that human activities have on their environment in regards to the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.

Track your carbon footprint

There are a number of fabulous websites that allow brides to track their wedding carbon footprint. Carbon footprint allows your wedding guest to choose a gift of planting a tree in your honor, which also helps to prevent climate change! As the recipient of this eco gift you will receive a gift certificate dated with your wedding date and a listing of how many trees will be donated by your guest.

tree planting event in Kenya - Oct 2006

latest tree growth - Feb 2009

TerraPass is a resourceful site that allows you and your planner to track your wedding carbon footprint, which is pretty useful if you are a true eco chic bride.

Give green bags

In search of a eco friendly out of town {OOT} bag? I love these great eco friendly bags from Bliss Wedding Market. These eco friendly bags are silk screened & made of 100% natural cotton. These bags are available in various city designs, however I did not see Nashville listed in the cities, but hey - we are Music City so maybe with enough influence they will create a bag for Nashville Brides!!

To add to Latrice’s brilliant options for reducing your carbon footprint, I’d like to add a few more ways to go green:

Give green gifts

My friend Sarah started Partners Tea. While she travels the world, she is based in Nashville and is “dedicated to connecting tea lovers with tea growers to improve the lives of both”.

She has introduced a new blend, which she calls “love” probably in honor of ABG brides. Only kidding. No seriously, I wanted to share it with you because I think it would be a great gift - if you are a tea lover - for your wedding guests.

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Sarah inspecting rooibos harvest with Barent, Cedarburg Mountains, South Africa, January, 2009

Love tea blend is a sweet and lively pomegranate white tea with cacao nibs and rose petals. They are $4 each and make a great wedding or shower favor, especially for a green minded bride. Partners Tea Company is a local Nashville company dedicated to making a difference through sharing our Fair Trade and Organic teas.

Sleep eco-friendly

When you are planning your wedding and want to calculate your footprint, you will quickly see that some things like air flights and hotel usage really impact the environment. Some changes are easier to make than others. I can’t help you with the airline impact but here are some green hotel options:

aloft Hotel

“Today’s green-savvy guests will find plenty of eco options at aloft Nashville-Cool Springs, thanks to our see green program. It starts at arrival, with park-like landscaping that offers the chance for a breath of fresh air.

Inside, natural materials like cork and sustainable wood veneers are integrated into the hotel’s design. And in guest rooms, less landfill litter is the thinking behind our in-shower product dispensers—non-biodegradable bottles, be gone! Guests can also choose to reuse—towels and linens, that is—to help save water and energy. Let’s go green!”

Also - Kristen gave me the following specifics about aloft’s green program:

1. We use compact fluorescent lighting throughout the property thus saving nearly 1000 tons of CO2e

2. We have lighting timers in all closets and back of house areas

3. All guest room HVAC systems have 9.4 EER

4. All HVAC unit temperatures in the common areas are set at a 2’ variance

5. Certain BOH HVAC unites cycle off from 5pm – 6am

6. aloft is Energy Star Approved

Hutton Hotel

According to Conde Nast, “The newest hotel in Nashville is also the city’s greenest. The Hutton Hotel opened in mid-February, and counts among its eco-friendly attributes bamboo flooring, reclaimed wood furnishings, and card readers that turn off lights when guests leave their rooms. The hotel is green enough for Al Gore-a Tennessean himself-who will be holding his Climate Project annual meeting there in May.”

Millenium Maxwell

Millennium Hotels and Resorts is committed in working towards preserving the environment, with eco-friendly initiatives across all 15 U.S. hotels and at the corporate level. We are working towards these initiatives as a first step of the company’s long-term focus on being “green.”

Gaylord Hotel

In 2008, Gaylord Opryland was awarded Good Earth Keeping Awards from both the Tennessee Hotel & Lodging Association and the Greater Nashville Hotels & Lodging Association. The resort also earned an Environ-Management Award in 2006 from the American Hotel & Lodging Association.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Guest Blogger: Tara of Lavish Events , a Nashville-based, wedding planning company

It’s always wonderful to support a local business, and even more wonderful if that business supplies products that are environmentally friendly. Now, don’t get confused - I am not a believer in global warming or the notion that the world is going to self implode. But I do believe in personal responsibility and I believe that carries forward in every facet of life. It’s important to treat God’s creation with the utmost respect, and always try to better the world in which we live.

This brings me to Nashville Wraps - a locally owned packaging company right out of sweet sweet Tennessee. Nashville Wraps is where Schakolad (our chocolate factory) buys most of their packaging, and also where I direct clients who need favor boxes or gift bags for their events. They have an entire section devoted to eco-friendly products made out of recycled or biodegradable materials. They are also stylish - gotta love that!

Here are a few picks:

100% recycled kraft boxes in many different sizes

Gift packaging printed on 100% recycled kraft paper

Bags made from Encore film - 25% recycled plastics collected in the US - also 100% recyclable at any collection station

Cotton curling ribbon made of 100% non woven renewable and biodegradable cotton fiber

Biodegradable cello bags - perfect for a candy buffet!

Thanks Tara for telling us all about Nashville Wraps. In addition to all of the great eco-friendly products, since they are locally based, their products don’t have to be shipped far, which further reduces the impact on the environment!

Thursday, August 4, 2008

Sarah of Fair Trade Teas contacted me and told me that she produces “green” (i.e eco-friendly) wedding favors. Since she’s a Nashville gal, my interest was piqued immediately. I quickly learned that her tea wedding favor has been featured on The Knot and I am thinking - why didn’t I know about this local fab?

When I saw the pic of Sarah - I was like - what a cutie with passion and purpose…this chick is really doing it. Then I realized that Sarah and I are the same age. We graduated the same year from Nashville high schools. I feel like I know her already.

It didn’t take long for Sarah to get me up to speed on her favors. Here’s what I learned about Sarah and her green wedding favors.

Not your Grandmother’s Cup of Tea

Sure, tea makes you healthy and beautiful, but did you know that Fair Trade tea also helps improve lives of tea growers around the world from Africa to India? Make a difference with your wedding favors by giving friends and family a gift that gives back to tea producing communities around the world. Our high-quality, delicious Wedding Blend is a full-bodied, vibrant blend of Fair Trade and Organic Pomegranate White tea and flowers. Each favor consists of 5 silken sachets of our Wedding Blend, 1 beautiful Fair Trade Teas label and a 3″X3″X3″ kraft box.
Fair Trade Teas is a local Nashville company owned and run by Nashville native, Sarah Scarborough.

Sarah’s Rocking Bio:
With an entrepreneurial spirit and a life-long dedication to environmental sustainability, Nashville born Sarah Scarborough has been developing and running Organic and Fair Trade tea businesses since 2001.

After graduating from Harpeth Hall School in 1993 and Trinity College in 1997 with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies, she worked and studied in the field of Sustainable Agriculture, completing post-graduate work at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2000.

In 2000, Sarah co-developed Thistle Farms, an effective local herbal crafts business for the employment of recovering prostitutes. Then, in 2001, turning her attention towards the social and global implications of sustainability, she started Fair Trade Teas, a business dedicated to promoting a better quality of life for developing tea producing communities world-wide.

As a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in New Zealand in 2004, Sarah promoted Fair Trade while studying for a MA at the University of Auckland and co-developing a successful mainstream Fair Trade tea, coffee and chocolate brand, Scarborough Fair Foods. Her work there earned a U.S. Congressional Award of merit in 2005.

Currenty, Sarah continues to stay involved in the tea industry by consulting on Fair Trade and tea, teaching tea classes, leading tea tours to countries of origin and developing unique and market- current custom tea blends for schools, churches, cafes, brides and corporations and by maintaining her tea certification with the Specialty Tea Institute.

Through her wedding tea favors, Sarah is “connecting tea lovers and tea growers to improve the lives of both”. It’s kind of like what I am doing with Nashville weddings…she’s my kind of girl.