Category Archives: Eco Thrifty Wedding

Eco Wedding, the dress

Dress Dilemma: Over

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I bought a dress today. (Insert girly shriek here. OK- I’m done now. No I’m not. eeeee!).

The story starts in December:
After drawing out the dress saga for many months I turned to the wedding bee for help. I had settled on buying used and even had an idea of the specific dress I was looking for. After dwelling on the Nicole Miller HG0013 for a few weeks I found the IK0004 online and just kept coming back to it. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It’s just so pretty without being too formal, and comes pre-wrinkled! I looked online at the pre-owned websites, but even a used IK0004 was well out of our budget. It also seemed to be a pretty in-demand dress, only a few out there and many brides wanting it. I thought I’d throw it out there to the hive to see if anyone had any ideas.

So, my pre-bee self posted a question to the boards. “Anyone have a used IK0004?”. I didn’t have high hopes.

But a few days later, this:

After a few emails it turns out that she had gotten the dress from another bee (who also maybe got it used?). Wait pre-pre-used? That’s even better than pre-used. And since this dress is in it’s third (or is it fourth) generation as a gown, she offered it to me for a great deal. A hmm..-I-can-actually-afford-this-dress-now deal. Yes, yes, yes.

All I had to do was wait until she got married at the end of February.

Fast Forward to March 1:She said she was getting married at the end of February, would it be too early to email her? I better wait a bit.

March 2:
Um, hi. Is my dress (I mean your dress), ready yet? Oh it is? Hooray! Oh you have pictures from your wedding? Do share!

Without further ado, OUR dress, as worn by the beautiful Adriana in her February wedding. It was shipped out last Thursday and is making its way across the Pacific as we speak. I suspect it could be here as early as Monday. (eeeeek!)

OK, enough of the girliness, lets get down to business. Because, for me, more important than getting a specific dress, was getting an ethical dress with a small eco footprint. So how does mine stack up?

– Sweatshop free? Yes. Nicole Miller is an advocate of fair labor practices.
– Eco-fabric? No. Metal taffeta does not sound even remotely eco, but I feel better because…
-Re-used? Yes. In at least 2 other weddings. Hooray!
-Low price? Eh. Low for a designer wedding dress, yes. But still way more money than I’ve ever spent on a single piece of clothing before. But the price is within our budget, and is a number I feel comfortable with. Plus, since the dress is in demand, I think I’ll be able to resell it and pass it onto yet another bride (Assuming I don’t spill red wine down the front ).

Farm wedding, kiwi as, Photography

Kiwi-Chilean Wedding

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Who doesn’t love some real-wedding inspiration? I certainly do. Here’s a southern-
hemisphere shindig that we went to last week celebrating the marriage of our friends
Matt and Claudia (how gorgeous are they?).

They got married at a venue called “The Red Barn” in Matamata. Take note all you kiwi brides. If we were getting married in New Zealand, this is where I would go. It was amazing. A huge outdoor fireplace, and beautiful indoor/outdoor reception area.

Claudia’s parents rode a bus 22 hours to get to Buenos Aires from their home town of Barriloche and then had to board a plane for 13 hours. Matt worked hard to practice his vows en español and all of the speeches were translated so that her parents didn’t miss a beat.

The ceremony was outside under a huge beautiful oak tree.

Late night party hats, masks, boas, and whistles.

It was such a fun and beautiful wedding. And, an added bonus was that seeing a wedding unfold suddenly inspired Mr. Veggie to have a wealth of wedding ideas. He’s been all wedding talk for the past three days. He’s made unprompted suggestions about favors, table settings, and center-pieces. I’m starting to worry about him.

Another bonus: The wedding was in Matamata, a.k.a. Hobbiton, where the Lord of The Rings Hobbit Village was located during filming. No, we didn’t go on a tour. Who needs to with photo opportunities like this right in the center of town?

*All photos by me.



Eco Thrifty Wedding, Uncategorized

I’m a bee!

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First off, apologies. I know I haven’t been posting much lately. But we’ve had a lot going on, least of which was a parasite that decided to take up residence in my gastrointestinal system. There also been a timber fram workshop that Nelson ran a few weeks back, and an exciting recycled raft race that I took part in this morning.

But really, the most blog-distracting of all events has been my acceptance as a bee. From now on, in addition to posting here, I’ll also be posting on Wedding Bee as Ms. Veggie. I know, who would’ve thought that there would be a Ms. Veggie icon ready for me to snatch up? I’ll be writing about our wedding planning process as we attempt to throw together an eco-fun-budget extravanagza.

Posts about the timber frame workshop and recycled raft race coming soon. Cross my heart!

Family

Bridal Baby Bump?

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One week ago, for the fourth time in 6 weeks, I found myself praying to the porcelain god. You know, tossing cookies. Ummm…. Hurling.


Source

Get it? A veggie puking? I crack myself up.


I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it too. So were the veggie girlfriends, Momma Veggie, SIL Veggie, and pretty much every other woman in our lives.


That’s why while Mr. Veggie was holding my hair and bringing me glasses of water I was counting on my fingers. Hmmm it’s March now and August is 1..2.. 6 months away. And crying.


“I’m not going to be able to drink at our wedding.” (Sob)

“And I wont fit into any wedding dresses.” (Sob, Sob)

“I’m going to be a pregnant bride.” (Loudest Sob)


Note: Do not try to be rational when you are throwing up. It doesn’t work.


If available, my rational self would have responded to irrational me as follows:

“Miss Veggie, you get drunk after 2 beers, how much are you really planning on drinking anyway?”

“And look, here’s a couture maternity wedding dress designer.”

“But most importantly, Miss Veggie, you haven’t taken a pregnancy test, have a fever and a stomach ache, and are currently having your period. Maybe you’re not pregnant at all.”


Oh rational self, you’re too clever. Mr. Veggie and I went to the doctor the next day. After some tests and belly tapping it became clear. There’s no fetus in my belly, but there is a parasite. Blastocystis hominis has taken up residence in my stomach. Apparently it comes from contaminated drinking water and leads not only to stomach issues, but also to weight loss and fatigue. Hmmm… is that why the only thing I’ve wanted to do for the past few weeks is lay around and surf wedding websites? I have kindly urged it to leave with some strong antibiotics. I’ll let you know how it goes.


After some thought, it certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world if a little veggie sprout decided to come along in the next few months. I mean its no secret that Mr. Veg and I are already sharing a house(truck) so no one would be too alarmed. It wouldn’t be perfect timing, but it wouldn’t change the fact that Mr. Veggie and I want to honor our love for each other by getting married. Plus all of our friends and family would be able to give their love and best wishes to veggie sprout before he or she even entered the world. And there is no more beautiful site than a gorgeous big-bellied gaia goddess momma-to-be. All the same, I think we’ll be extra careful for the next little while.


Congrats to any pregnant brides out there, whether it was a fully planned or surprise sprout. Have you had to adjust your wedding plans much? Have any hints for other mommas-to-bee (ha ha)? Have any of you other bees been scared into celibacy for a while?

Camp Wedding, Colors, Inspiration Boards

Inspiration 2.0

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I have a problem. I really like inspiration boards.
That was an understatement.
I love them.
Well, let my addiction and source of hours of procrastination be your eye candy. I unveil Veggie Weddin-spiration Version 2.0.

Any ideas on where to use the amazing, yet prohibitively expensive fabrics? What do you think of having so many colors? Too much? Most importantly, is there a place in the wedding party for moustaches?
Camp Wedding, Save The Date, Story

I am calm. Really I am.

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I don’t know if you bees remember, but down here on the farm us Veggies were having a bit of a venue crisis. After much crying, and begging, and more crying, and supportive words from Mr. Veggie, it became clear that we were not going to get our date at our venue.

I tested out a mantra: “I am calm. I am at peace. All is well.”

We were left with two options, find a new venue or switch dates. I was a mess.

Should we stick with the same venue and move our wedding to September, even though this would be extremely inconvenient for our friends and family who work at prep schools? Or should we backtrack and try to find another venue even though I felt as though I’d contacted every camp on this side of the Mississippi?

At this point I was repeating that mantra like a full-fledged Buddhist monk.

Funny enough my biggest concern through all of this was our STD’s. In the back of my mind I was pretty sure we would find another venue or that somehow the date would work out, but I was absolutely distraught at the idea of re-sending out STD’s. I’m not really a crier. But we’re talking full-on tantrum here.

After a few days (weeks) of thought I think I’ve figured out why I was so upset.

It all goes back to me generally not being good at completing projects, and me seeming to attract little mix-ups like this, and most of all putting way too much pressure on myself to make the wedding perfect. I’m an ADHD over-achiever, with some serious self-doubts when it comes to the ability to follow things through. I was viewing the wedding as an opportunity to show off the detail-focused, budget and time responsible, grown up version of me. Resending the STD’s would flaw our perfect wedding image from the very start.

Of course, in the moment I couldn’t put words to any of that, but now that the venue crisis is over, I can say “Miss Veggie, chill out”. The wedding is a wedding, nothing more, nothing less. It’s an opportunity for us to be surrounded by people we love, eating good food, dancing, and listening to good music.

Oh yeah, did I mention that our venue crisis is over? O-V-E-R.

The Veggie crew far and wide pulled together once they heard that our venue basically booted us from our date. While Mr. Veggie and I were debating the possibility of changing dates and staying at the same venue, some amazing veggie friends and family sprung into action researching other summer camp options. For two weeks they (and we) called, emailed, and googled their little hearts out. And, in the end, it all worked out for the better.

I’ll unveil our new venue shortly. Mr. Veggie is afraid we’ll jinx it if we announce too soon, and I can’t say I blame him. So, I’m testing out a new technique… I think they call it patience. It’s a new one for me. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Eco Wedding, the dress

Dress Dilemma- Chapter Three: New Zealand (Again)

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When we last left off I had gotten over my painful breakup with Adele Wechsler by trying on some pretties by Nicole Miller. But I still wasn’t sure that a brand new dress was right for me.

A few weeks later, after visiting several bridal shops in the U.S., I went back home to New Zealand empty handed with a picture of Nicole Miller HG0013 firmly positioned on the desktop of my computer and a better idea of what I was looking for in a dress. I had bookmarked the websites of a few used-dress websites and checked them daily, ok, more like hourly to see what was on offer. Turns out there were more used dress options than I knew existed. They were gorgeous, reasonably priced, and reused. I was sold. This was definitely the route I was going to take.

But then, one day while killing a few hours in Hamilton waiting for Mr. Veggie something caught my eye. How could I have not seen this store before? It’s only two doors down from the Salvation Army (a must-visit whenever I’m in the big city). And look at this pretty little number. Pay no attention to my angry looking face or body language, I was actually very happy. Note to self: no hands on hips on the big day.

Yeah, I know its blue. Just ignore that for a minute. This is the Didion Rose dress made by Annah Stretton. She is a Kiwi designer that uses kiwi fabrics.

My thought line here is this: buying kiwi-made supports our local economy. It also saves me from having to ship an American bought dress over to NZ for alterations, thus lowering the carbon footprint of the dress. And, although it is a fairly expensive dress, it is still under $1000 kiwi, which with the exchange rate comes in way under the price of any American dress I found.

But local doesn’t necessarily mean eco. And, this is still a new dress that would be made for me for just one day.

So I did what any sensible girl would do. I went to try it on three more times with various girlfriends. The third time they had the ivory color in stock, so I took some more pictures (with a cell phone, sorry), so I could truly deliberate.

In the end I decided that I liked it, but didn’t love it. The shape wasn’t the most flattering (hello hips). Neither the eco footprint or the pricetag were low enough to justify me buying a brand new dress. Goodbye Annah Stretton. You really are fabulous. Maybe we’ll meet again some day.

By this point the dress hunt was making my brain hurt. Local or not? Eco fabrics or conventional? Used or new? What size, what style, what color? Sanity gone. I need a break from all this dressing.

Was your dress hunt stressful? Please tell me I’m not the only one. What were you most worried about? Any thoughts on how I should proceed?

Eco Wedding, the dress

Dress Dilemma – Chapter Two: New Jersey

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When I last left off I was sitting in a puddle of my own drool admiring the Adele Wechsler EcoCouture collections. Well, reality check time. Those gorgeous frocks are way out of my price league. I mean way out. Like half of our total budget out.

We run a non-profit organization and have dedicated our lives to living simply. While financially it would be possible for me to get one of those dresses with a ton of scrimping and saving, I just cannot justify spending that much money on a dress I will wear for one day. I understand that some brides work really hard to find ways to buy their dream dress, and I appreciate that, but that’s just not me. Honestly, (please don’t kick me out of the bride club), its not that important to me. When I walk down the aisle I want to be feeling my absolute best, which means knowing that I am wearing an ethical dress from an ecological standpoint, but also a social one. Spending thousands on a dress is not a responsible decision for me to make right now.

Having said that…. I want to look pretty on my big day! Small tantrum over. I promise.

Fast forward a few weeks and I was home in the U.S. visiting with Veggie Sis K (for Kale?). (There are 4 Veggie Sisters, E-Eggplant, T-Tomato, and C-Carrot, will also make appearances). Sis Kale got married in 2005 and still had a surprisingly large stash of bridal magazines. Knowing that I wouldn’t buy these for myself, she had them waiting for me upon my arrival. I promptly dug in.

Wait. What’s this beauty?Source

It looks so airy and light. Elegant without being stuffy.

Me: Who makes this?
Veggie Sis Kale: Nicole Miller.
Me: Isn’t she the one who does those funny fabrics with prints of sunglasses and wine bottles?
Veggie Sis Kale: Umm… yeah, in 1992. Welcome back to the world of fashion.

A few weeks later Mamma Veggie, Veggie Sis Kale, and Veggie Sis Eggplant brought me to the Nicole Miller Boutique for our bridal appointment. The consultant was fantastic, if a little confused by my wedding-day wishlist. I surely didn’t help the matter by being a bridal dunce. I wore the wrong undies, the wrong bra, and didn’t know anything about what I was looking for. Luckily Veggie Sis Kale took control of the situation. I ended up finding a few Nicole Miller dresses that I liked, although my top choice was still the HG0013. Could it be the one?

I went home and did some research. (Pro) The price was better, (Con) but at retail value, still a lot. (Pro) Nicole Miller is sweat-shop free and made in the USA, they also support animal rights. (Con) The dress is made out of metal-tafetta, surely not an eco-fabric. (Con) It is still a brand new dress made just for me for one night.

Best to sit and think on it a bit more.

Eco Wedding, the dress

Dress Dilemma – Chapter One: New Zealand

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I’ve talked about Mr. Veggie’s outfit, the veggie dudes, and the bridesmaids. I’ve posted about the veggie sprouts. But, I haven’t talked much yet about my dress. Maybe I’ve been avoiding the subject because it is steeped in inner conflict. Let me set the scene.

A well-intentioned me sits at my computer surfing the web for wedding ideas. On one of my shoulders (shall we say the left shoulder) sits a beautiful eco angel. She whispers encouraging words in my ear and fills my head with lovely wedding-day dreams. A petroleum-covered slug sits on the other. The eco angel is winning the battle. She is armed with our electronic save-the-dates, our local and organic inspired menu, and our beautiful travel-minimizing venue. But the petro-slug isn’t done yet. He has an armament too. What card could he possibly hold that might pull me out of my eco wedding bliss?

He has Lazaro LZ3700.

And LianCarlo 2891.

Oh and Sposo Di Gio (style #?).

Oooh. Pretty. So very, very pretty.

But eco angel, you have your own armament of eco-friendly wedding dresses, right? Please tell me you do.

Hmm..

Uh-huh.

Note to designers: not all hippies want fairies and toadstools on their wedding gowns. Some do, but I don’t. And, not all eco brides want to turn their wedding into the rennessaince festival. And furthermore, I appreciate that many eco-friendly brides are going for a casual look. And, usually I would be right there with them. But this is my one and only day to leave the Birkenstocks behind and feel all glammed up. And I want to go for it. Isn’t there any designer who understands that eco doesn’t have to mean hippie-casual? Is there any eco designer who has braved the elegant couture bridal scene? Can I have eco and elegant?

Yes. Says Adele Wechsler.
The Sunray.

The Haze.

The Magnolia.

Swoon. Let me try one of those puppies on. Stat.
Oh yeah, we live in New Zealand. No such luck.

Flower Girls, Inspiration Boards

Bite-Sized Veggies

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Maybe its just that time of the month, but I can’t get those little veggie sprouts out of my mind. Here’s an inspiration board I did devoted just to them.

Sources: Top row (l-r)- The Children’s Place, Autumn Star Designs, Amazon, J. Crew, J. Crew; Middle Row (l-r)- Project Wedding, Velvet and Tweed, City Wendy, Chasing Fireflies, Oncewed; Bottom Row (l-r)- Newsies!, Oncewed, Kyle Hale, Chasing Fireflies

It’s undecided as to how many boy sprouts will make it down the aisle. But either way, they are both getting dressed up. Mostly because I can’t resist baby-sized suspenders. Oh my goodness! Paired up with a newsboys cap, a tie, and a vest, and the Little Mr. Veggies will be looking dapper.

MIL Veggie has offered to make the flower girls’ dresses. She is aflutter with patterns and fabric swatches and design ideas. I can’t wait to see how they turn out. I’ll be sure to keep you updated. Don’t you love the pic of the little girl in red chucks and a tutu?

This is just an inspiration board, not the actual items we will use. As I start my kids clothes hunt, any hints on where to purchase eco-friendly kids clothes that wont break the bank?