Ethical Bride Guide: Choosing a Venue

We're continuing our Ethical Bride Guide series with a few things couples should keep in mind while seeking a venue for the big day. Whether you want to have 10 people or 1,000, the below items are essential issues to consider in order to make your wedding more earth-friendly. 

Picture Your Day

When entering a venue for a tour be sure to take plenty of photos, but also take a moment to consider your dream wedding. Ask yourself, what would it take to transform this space into my dream space? The less effort you need to put into decor, the lighter the carbon footprint of the event will likely be. This is one of the reasons that barn weddings are so popular, the rustic setting appeals to many brides' tastes without needing too much froofing up. Warehouse weddings, on the other hand, can be tricky. If you love a minimal look, go for it, but if you are just looking for a blank slate to turn into your dream space, consider if there may be venues that already provide some of the elements you'd like. 

Consider Transportation

How will the majority of your guests get to your venue? If you're doing a destination wedding that requires people to fly abroad, consider purchasing carbon offsets for all of the flights - or encourage your guests to offset their trips. If you're getting married locally, consider providing shared transportation from the ceremony to the reception - or even better - have both at the same venue and save some gas! 

Take Note of Rental Needs

Do your wallet a favor and make sure to ask the venue if they provide tables, chairs, linens, dinnerware, etc. The more that the venue provides, the less needs to be rented($$$) and trucked in for the day. Avoid disposables. If you need disposables, consider arranging compostable options and a compost waste pickup. Tip: Bootstrap Compost can provide bins and do pickup if you want to compost at a Boston-area event!

Ask the Owner About Sustainability Initiatives

There are so many individual questions you could ask: Where do you source your food? What kind of lightbulbs are used in the space? What types of cleaning products do you use? Is recycling available on the premises? Save some time and incorporate all of that into one question and ask if they have any sustainability initiatives. Remember, they're trying to sell you their space, so they're sure to tell you everything they're doing, so if they miss some biggies (aka recycling) this might be a red flag. We want to do our best to support the event venue businesses that are making an effort - and many are! 

Let us know - what were the biggest things you looked for in a wedding venue?