Indian weddings are known for their splendor, lavish parties, variety of cuisine and mind boggling decorations. However, Avinash Krishnagopal and Nattida Manadee decided to decrease the impact of their event on the planet and hence opted for a green wedding.
“Right from childhood, we were taught to appreciate and value Mother Nature. Though we grew up in Bangalore city we would spend our vacations at our grandparent’s place located in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. This naturally helped us appreciate and value nature even more. Mother and grandmother were a great influence on us to lead a simple life. Further, having grown up in Bangalore, we have seen the way the city has transformed and the harmful impact of rapid development on the city’s environment. Our concern for the city as well as nature, made us decide to opt for wedding celebrations that will have least impact on environment and Nattida too agreed happily,” says Avinash Krishnagopal.
The main aim was to reduce waste as much as possible and not use plastic. Hence, throughout the function, only plantain leaf and steel tumblers were used for lunch and dinner, glass for tea/coffee. “Decoration, too, was kept minimal, done with local flowers and leaves and no exotic flowers were used. Tamboola bags were stitched out of cloth made by an NGO, which works with physically and mentally challenged children and adults; gifts were mainly hand-woven baskets and terracotta stuff sourced from various artisans, wedding cards were printed on 100% recycled tetra pack paper, natural colors were used for Rangoli,” informs Abhisheka, sister of Avinash, who organized the entire event and is an ecologist herself.
“We avoided using any plastic or shining papers to decorate wedding items and instead painted them with traditional motifs,” she adds.
The couples also decided to cancel a formal reception and instead had a musical and story-telling event where the artistes were given the central stage. “In most weddings, artistes are given a tiny corner which, I feel is a great disrespect to them and hence, we decided to give them a prominent place in our wedding,” says Avinash.
Along with decoration, the family decided to reduce the variety of food items as well. “We always believe that if there is excess money it should be donated or used for a better cause than spending it unnecessarily on food, clothes and other stuff. The food items served were minimal, right enough for people to enjoy and not get overfed. There was no wastage of food and the left over sweets were distributed,” says Abhisheka.
Since it was a traditional wedding, silk was used, but again, the family opted for low cost silk sarees that were simple and could be worn back again. “In most of the weddings, the wedding attires are so grand that they can hardly be worn again. Hence, we decided to do away with this ritual as well and opted for simple attires,” says Abhisheka.
“However, to opt for green wedding was not easy as most of the decorators refused to offer their services for a simple wedding. Likewise, to convince the caterers to avoid disposables was also very challenging,” she adds.
“We had to look into every tiny detail such as avoiding paan which comes wrapped in plastic, using cloth towels instead of paper tissues, sourcing products from NGO’s and artisans, all had to be personally looked into. But at the end of it all, the fact that we managed to pull it off successfully brought us great satisfaction. Though it was not a 100% eco-friendly wedding we tried to our best of abilities to reduce the impact on environment,” says Avinash with a smile.