This Sister Duo Planned a 100% Eco-Friendly Wedding By Themselves!

We always nod along to Vandana Shiva and Greta Thunberg’s speeches but seldom do we make the necessary changes. And when the topic of an eco-friendly wedding comes up, we limit ourselves to seed paper invitations and give excuses to cover up the waste generated at weddings. How can one forget the infamous Gupta wedding that took place in Auli and left behind 4000kgs of waste? The Gupta wedding is just an example of many. Families go out of their way to impress their guests, often wasting food and other resources. But on the bright side, I recently came across a wedding that acts like a glimmer of hope in this wasteful world. I have to say, I am mighty impressed by Sanchita and Prasoon’s eco-friendly wedding held in Bikaner.

The credit for this beautiful wedding goes to her sister and wedding planner, Prakriti Rajvanshi. Prakriti and Sanchita are pro-sustainability and they do their bit in their everyday lives to be zero waste and environment-friendly. The first thing I did as the wedding planner was to Google around the eco-friendly weddings in India. I was shocked to find out that no North-Indian wedding has been fully zero-waste! Agreed, a lot of weddings use eco-friendly cutlery and saplings at their wedding ceremonies, but never fully zero waste. We wanted to make sure every element is paid attention to.” says Prakriti. The idea behind a green wedding was not just to reduce wastage that a wedding generates but was also to spread some awareness of how small choices and small conscience efforts can make a big difference. 

From favours to decor elements, this unique wedding has made a long-lasting impression.

Mehendi Ceremony

They kept saplings for the local guests at the mehendi ceremony. “The plants we chose required low maintenance. We kept a total of 150 plants and even if 1 person started to learn how to nurture a plant and let it grow; my purpose is achieved. The plants were bought from a local nursery at Rs. 30 each. The special thing about all 150 saplings was the packaging. When you generally go to buy sapling from a nursery they are in a plastic bag or plastic pots and we know how harmful is that. So when we ordered plants at the nursery we requested him to not to use plastic and instead wrap them in jute bags. We collected scrap jute bags from scrap dealer and cut them into smaller pieces suitable for one sapling.”

A surprising yet thoughtful element of the gift cart was the seed ball. They packed each seed ball in small cloth bags that they upcycled out of an unused organza dupatta. The seed balls were for outstation guests as they are portable They placed an order for seedballs from Araatrika.

Sangeet Ceremony

Prakriti  made special seating tags for the couple for the sangeet ceremony. The tags were upcycled using scrap jute bag and acrylic paint.

Haldi Ceremony

 The gifts for the groom’s family were all packed in a cotton cloth bags. These were further decorated with net instead of plastic. There was a handwritten name tag attached to every gift to complete the look.

The sisters up-cycled newspapers to make sagan ka lifafa. They used wax seals with the couple’s initials to make it more attractive. They made approximately 200 envelopes and had three colours to indicate which one has how much money. A few guests kept those envelopes as a souvenir of the wedding.

 Prakriti used an old pair of kolhapuris and took out the bag of scrap fabrics and laces to create a brand new bright pair for the bride to go with Haldi theme.

Love this nimbu-mirchi decor for the haldi ceremony.

Here is a bonus picture of the bride and her bridesmaids wearing the saree that she gifted them at the mehendi ceremony. The saree is made of sustainable material!

Image source: Beginnings For You

If you ever think you can’t pull of an eco-friendly wedding, just think of Sanchita and Prasoon’s and the ideas will flow in!