green gift ideas for the couple and the guest

i'm sorry it took so long for me to write my next post. i think i wrote so much in my first week that i was struck with a creative block. but no need to worry, i'm going to post a bunch right now!

my friend who is going to a wedding this weekend sent me this nice little link. its filled with tons of great green, eco-friendly gift ideas. i'll provide some highlights below:

changingthepresent.org offers thousands of donation gifts from Inspire Dreams- 15 books for kids ($45), Equip a household- give seeds and supplies ($100), and Adopt a Jaguar- Support a conservation project ($35). now who doesn't want their own jaguar?

couples can also give a gift of charity when creating a registry with I Do Foundation Gift Registry. when creating a registry, you provide your guests by picking up a gift for you while donating up to 8% to your chosen charity.

Guests can create a gift basket of sustainable household items such as organic cotton towels, compact flourescenet light bulbs and more at National Green Pages.

or guests can plant a tree with Trees for the Future's certificates. they will give you a tree planting kit where you can plant your own tree or sponsor the planting of 250 trees in Haiti, Senegal, or Ethiopia.

couples can provide green gifts for their wedding party:

for the ladies- you can create a quality gift basket through global exchange. Global exchange works with Women Around The World Gift Basket to create a collection of goodies that benefits women and girls around the world by helping to end violence towards women and girls.

for the men- Ten Thousand Villages has a great assortment for guy gifts that include a Guatemalan camera bag and onyx chess sets.

there are tons of more ideas at green elegance weddings.

diy mini garden

my roommate and i are having a craft night in a couple of weeks and i've been thinking of what i should make. lo and behold, i just found this awesome diy project on design*sponge. i think this will make a great addition to my office. i'll post pictures of my finished product!

instructions here

my almost perfect location

as stated in my previous post, i first started this wedding madness with a simple search for location. i soon found that it is going to be much harder to find the "perfect" wedding location as i envision it in my head, which is like this:

green luscious landscape surrounded by mountains with wildflowers blooming all over the place-kinda like this:

sans julie andrews 

with a rustic small white chapel right in the middle like so:

or:

i soon found these things were hard to find in southern california, especially the green part until i found the Figueroa Mountain Farmhouse (pics below). i literally almost cried when i saw the pictures. this was even better than the image in my head and it was just a couple of hours north in the town of los olivos! this place is completely isolated, surrounded by hills, very green (well in certain seasons anyways- i want a spring wedding), and tons of land! (150 acres). the more i think about it, i don't really want to get married in a chapel or church since neither me nor my boyfriend are that religious. i think an outdoor wedding would suit us much better. the farmhouse is also plenty rustic and i definitely want that rustic/outdoorsy/green/garden feel to my wedding. look at these amazing pics:

pic courtesy of santa barbara wedding chic

pic courtesy of Figueroa Mountain Farmhouse

 

pic courtesy of emily

you get the point. well it turns out Sam, who hopefully will let us all know in detail in her next post, knew a couple who was married here and the location didn't turn out so well. apparently when the guests sat down the chairs started sinking into the ground which i'm sure is very uncomfortable. also the drive up there was pretty long and windy which could be a headache for the guests especially at night. an option to offset that would be to use shuttles but that's extra cost and i think it still would be a hassle for the guests. so that kinda sucks but i think its worth checking out in person, if i ever get engaged.

so my search is still ongoing. i heard that charmlee wilderness park in malibu was pretty green and nice. i'll find out more info/pics and write about that in a separate post.

-crystal