"Green" Wedding Favors for Eco-Friendly Brides

Weddings make a huge impact on our environment each year. If you want to find ways to make your wedding event eco-friendly, check out these 7 ideas for "Green" wedding favors that will help you and your guests give back.

There are so many creative seed favors on the market, so this is a very inexpensive and beautiful way to give back to nature while saying "thank you" to your guests.

You can find flat cards of handmade paper that have seeds imbedded in them. Simply plant the entire card and watch the flowers grow. There are also seed packets like the ones shown here that are full of wildflower seeds. The labels can be customized to list your name and dates as well as a simple thank you message.

Guests will have a great time seeing the happy couple off when they get to open their confetti poppers and let biodegradable tissue paper confetti rain down. Not only does this make less environmental impact that many types of confetti, but it will also make for some really cool photographs. There are many different kinds and options to choose from, but these pictured here were found at Bliss Weddings Market at a cost of $15.00 for a pack of 12 poppers.

Made of all natural pure beeswax, your guests will love these beautiful candles! These candles burn clean and are a great way to let your guests know how much you appreciate them being there for you on your wedding day. Believe it or not, you can actually find beautiful natural candles like these for as low as $1.50 each. If you want to add a special touch, make some thank you tags for the box or sleeves that list your date and names out of 100% recycled paper. These elegant candles are a great choice for a more formal wedding.

If you are wanting to give your guests a sweet treat, look for chocolates that are made from organic milk and that are fair trade chocolates. You can find small or large bars in many different flavors like raspberry or dark chocolate. Make your own labels or sleeves to fit around each bar with 100% recycled paper for an extra personal touch. Endangered Species has organic chocolate bars that feature an at-risk animal on each wrapper, in a variety of colors, so you might start there. Their prices are about $144 for 96 chocolate bars. Leave one at each place setting for your guests or leave them in their hotel rooms in their gift bag to say thank you and welcome.

There are many places online where you can order either gift boxes with tree seeds or even live trees in a tube to give to your guests. If you want to save money, you could even buy your own peat and break it up, putting a seed into each one for your own handmade tree gifts. The Arbor Day Foundation will put different types of seedlings into a tube and send them each with a customized label around them for your wedding! They cost about $3.00 each, though, so make sure your budget allows for it. It is perfectly acceptable to give one tree per family, rather than per person! The trees will live for days in the refrigerator and can be started inside the house or planted outside. This is a wonderful gift that will grow as your new marriage grows.

A very useful gift that will also smell nice and double a beautiful decoration is a sachet of organic herbs and spices. Lavendar is such a beautiful color of purple and smells so sweet. It traditionally symbolizes devotion, which is wonderful for a wedding. And what about organic rose petals? Roses have always been a symbol of love. Make your own environmentally friendly bag or find one online to hold your herbs and spices. You can get a good deal by buying the herbs in bulk and filling the bags yourself. Add a personal touch by tying a tag onto the bag that explains the meaning of the herb and has the date and location of the wedding printed on it.

Another great idea is to give your guests the very practical and clean smelling gift of handcrafted soaps. Make them yourself or order them online, just make sure that you use all natural materials like olive oil, shea butter, and coconut oil. You can easily scent your soap with mint or eucalyptus or any number of different fresh herbs. Give them out as plain bars or make a label out of recycled paper to put around each bar. Print out your name and a thank you note or poem on the label as an added personal touch.

Brides who make a conscious effort to make eco-friendly choices throughout every step of their wedding planning process can really make a difference in the health of our Earth.