Planning your wedding comes with highs and lows of excitement and stress. While your engagement might fill you with joy and hopefulness, you will quickly realize all the decisions, costs and complications among them — including the amount of waste you might produce during your ceremony and reception.

Whether the environmental impact of your wedding is a top priority or a factor you’re just now considering, here are some ways to make your wedding eco-friendly without compromising your vision or preferred traditions.

1. Wear Family Jewelry

If you have not yet chosen an engagement ring or need to pick out your wedding bands, you might consider avoiding brand new pieces if possible. It’s more eco-friendly to use an heirloom ring and wear family jewelry on your wedding day. If you already have your engagement ring, you can still opt for borrowed necklaces, earrings, cufflinks and other accessories.

It all comes down to the diamonds in each accessory. Mining processes remove vegetation and topsoil, killing plants like trees that offset atmospheric carbon gas. Producing new diamond jewelry hurts the environment much more than borrowing a necklace or wearing an heirloom accessory.

If you are buying new, consider choosing an alternative to diamonds. In some cases, gemstones like rubies, sapphires and emeralds are mined on smaller scale digging sites, as opposed to the large industrial mines that produce most diamonds.

If you still want the classic diamond, synthetic and lab-grown diamonds can have less of an impact than the real stones. While you should still take time to research the companies and their processes for sourcing these alternatives, you are likely to find more sustainable options here than with real diamonds.

2. Send Digital Invitations

Sending formal invitations in the mail is a common wedding tradition, but using paper that people will more than likely throw away eventually creates unnecessary waste. Instead of sending invitations on material that would otherwise improve the atmosphere and provide homes to wildlife, select virtual invitations for your guests. They’re more sustainable and budget-friendly, so it’s an all-around win for eco-friendly brides.

3. Source Eco-Friendly Farms

Farms supply many of the necessities people need to host a wedding, but they aren’t all sustainable. Talk with your vendors about where they source their goods. If their business ethics match your eco-friendly lifestyle, they’ll easily discuss their commitment to working with specific farms. They will likely avoid chemical fertilizers and think of the environment in every step of their business practices.

Your florist can supply fresh flower arrangements by partnering with eco-friendly farms worldwide that have numerous blooms in-season throughout the year. You can ask caterers whether they use reusable or biodegradable utensils, vegan menu options, and locally sourced food. A quick conversation will reveal which vendors will support your green wedding and which will not.

4. Think About the Dress

The wedding dress industry produces new designs every season, making many brides feel the need to splurge on the newest trend. However, you’re more than likely to wear your wedding outfit only once, so the cost and environmental impact may not be worth it.

Borrowing a dress or tuxedo from a relative is a classic option for people looking to follow family tradition – the perfect way to have that “something old.” If you don’t have that option, there are still plenty of ways to find something more sustainable than buying from a major corporation.

Thrift, consignment and vintage stores often have wedding dresses and suits in stock. While other clothing in thrift stores can be well-worn, a donated wedding dress was probably only worn once or twice before.

If you don’t plan to wear the traditional white gown or black tux, thrift stores are the perfect places to go to find unique outfits and accessories that fit your personality. Whether you plan to wear white, red or anything in between, you can go to a secondhand store knowing you will find something that no other brides and grooms will be wearing this year.

If you strike out shopping secondhand, try researching companies that sell handmade dresses, use eco-friendly materials, or have the option to rent. All of these options can also work for bridesmaids dresses, groomsmen suits or guest attire.

5. Request Environmental Charity Donations

When thinking about your wedding registry, consider what items you genuinely need. Do you really need a brand new set of dishes when you already have some? While the purpose of a registry is to provide couples with things they need to start their life together, people might take the opportunity to receive new items and toss out what they already have.

Every product requires planes, trains, ships and trucks to burn fossil fuels. Rather than adding CO2 to the atmosphere, you could ask your guests to donate to environmentally friendly charities listed on your wedding website. Their money will help the Earth and support a cause you and your partner love.

6. Donate Your Wedding Supplies

You likely won’t want to keep everything you use for your wedding after your ceremony ends. Decor typically ends up in landfills and adds harmful gases to the atmosphere. Research shows that landfill gases are 50% methane, which is the climate-warming gas that comes from the organic bacteria working overtime to decompose waste.

Think about donating whatever wedding supplies you don’t want to keep – either to a thrift store, a nonprofit or a friend with an upcoming wedding. Other brides will appreciate getting them at a discount, and you won’t expand your carbon footprint.

7. Strategize Your Leftovers

Plated reception dinners and buffet meals always have leftovers, so ask your caterers to gather them in takeaway containers. You can donate the food to nearby food banks and homeless shelters around your venue or hometown. This will help hungry people and prevent excessive food waste.

8. Rent What You Can

Rent your wedding decor instead of buying brand new wedding supplies you’ll only use once. Businesses often rent things like signs and wedding dresses for multiple reasons. Brides can get them for better prices, and the act of renting keeps waste from littering the environment. See which businesses near your venue will rent what you need to make your wedding perfect.

9. Rethink Your Reception Exit

Brides almost always plan a fun exit from their reception. You’ve likely seen pictures of them running to their getaway car under a flurry of confetti, but the trash lingers in the local environment.

Prevent wildlife from consuming trash by planning a biodegradable exit. Flower petals will naturally decompose after your wedding day ends and bubbles made with eco-friendly soap won’t contribute chemicals to the soil. There are many sustainable alternatives to traditional wedding exit supplies.

Make Your Wedding Eco-Friendly

While some people might not consider the environmental implications of a one-day event, the amount of waste that weddings produce can be significant. Take some time to consider how you can plan an eco-friendly wedding ceremony that still meets all your hopes for your big day. Some sustainable swaps, like virtual invites and hand-me-down jewelry, might even help you cut costs. Whatever eco-friendly decisions you make, you’ll be able to enjoy your wedding day knowing you’re helping the planet in the process.

Something Green: How to Make Your Wedding Eco-Friendly