Photo - Shannon Lee Images

The fall issue of Eco-Beautiful Weddings has just been released and we’ve got a fresh article featured on pages 52-55. This time around we tackled the trendy topic of eco-friendly wedding wear for men. If you’re in search of green alternatives to traditional suits, dress shirts and accessories, we highly recommend checking this piece out… along with all of the other great articles and features.

Access the fall 2011 issue here. Cheers!

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photo credit – shannon lee images

Looking for eco-friendly ways to incorporate America’s Pastime into your wedding day? Look no further than the summer issue of Eco-Beautiful Weddings. On pages 67-69, you’ll find an article from yours truly on planning a green, baseball-themed wedding. From venues to cakes to photo shoot locales, you’ll find several options for showcasing your love of the game while staying true to environmentally-friendly practices.

Cheers!

As a serial entrepreneur, I’m a huge supporter of start-up companies. It takes real guts to go out on a limb and start a company in today’s financial climate — especially with no guarantee of stability in the economy. There’s no shortage of innovative companies on the rise in many industries,  — but what really interests me is discovering start-ups in the world of weddings.

This brings me to Greenvelope.com. Greenvelope is the brainchild of Sam Franklin — a student at Washington University in St. Louis that decided a heavy college workload at a prestigious university wasn’t enough. He also wanted to start a company. I dig that outlook on entrepreneurship and I also dig his idea: a personalized approach to paperless wedding invitations.

Introducing Greenvelope.com

Greenvelope provides clients an environmentally-friendly service to easily customize and send formal wedding invitations electronically (via e-mail). They offer three packages — including the free “bronze” package for your Save-the-Date cards.

To help celebrate their launch, Greenvelope is offering our readers a 25% discount on their two most popular packages. Users entering the coupon code “themanregistry” will receive:

• 25% off the Silver or Gold Package
• New Package or Upgrade eligible.
• Good for 3 Months
• Unlimited Use – Can even be used for multiple events within the same account.
• VIP support and guidance.

A sampling of what Greenvelope offers..

Greenvelope is easy to use because it was designed with the user-experience in mind. A few of our favorite features are:

• No ads! – Greenvelope takes electronic invitations to the next level, by introducing an unexplored level of formality: ad-free wedding invitations. Guests do not see pop-ups, ad banners, or receive spam.
• Organization – Your guest list will be easy to keep organized with the simple management tools that Greenvelope provides. Users are instantly notified when a guest RSVP’s, and the guest list updates automatically to show any changes.

For the full list of features, click here.

We hope that you’ll check out Greenvelope.com. For further information, you can follow them on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook.

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Readers – what do you think of Greenvelope? Would you consider going paperless with your wedding invitations and save-the-dates? In what other areas of wedding planning are you going green? Let us know in the comments.

Guest Blogger Profile: Katie Martin of Eco-Beautiful Weddings

Let’s face it, there is too much emphasis on what the bride will wear both for her dress and underneath it!  Women want their men to wear sexy underwear as well.  Why not be sexy and green at the same time?  If you and your bride are planning a green wedding – why not go all the way?  What is eco-friendly underwear?  It depends on where you are in the world!  Finding underwear that is made in your country is green in and of itself.  However – if you can find a company that makes organic cotton and locally sourced fabric underwear and in your country – you’ve scored.

Here are a few favorites of mine to gear up for your wedding day, your honeymoon and life:

American Apparel has a line of organic cotton underwear – but also just has an amazing array of underwear for both you and your chica.  In fact, women love to wear American Apparel’s men’s underwear!  What could be sexier than a woman wearing your underwear?  All of their underwear is made in Los Angeles.

Rawganique organic cotton sateen boxers are also a great and sexy choice for its soft brushed feel and various colors.

Calvin Klein has a new line of 100% combed organic cotton boxer briefs.  Enough said here – women just dig Calvin Klein as they are the king of sexy men underwear models…and now you will be your fiance’s own personal model.

Remember, just a few simple choices to make your wedding green can make a huge difference…start with your underwear and who knows what other choices you will make!

Katie Martin
Editor-in-Chief
Eco-Beautiful Weddings

BrilliantEarth.com drops by today today to pop a very important question: how can you create a green marriage proposal?

It’s been the one snag in your relationship: she’s nutty about being green, while you’ve never thought twice about skipping Earth Day. Admittedly, you’ve learned a lot from her. Everything in your relationship has gone swimmingly well since you exchanged your duck hunting rifle for a pair of bird watching binoculars.  Now that you’re thinking of ways to pop the question, you’re eager to show her how much you love her and how environmentally-sensitive you’ve become. Your marriage proposal needs to be solidly green.

The key thing to remember when making an eco-friendly marriage proposal is not to lose sight of the basics. Bear in mind what it is that you’ll be giving her: a diamond engagement ring. As she is probably aware, not all engagement rings are created equally green.  Many diamonds are mined in ways that harm the environment or that lead to violence and human rights abuses. Gold mining is an especially dirty process, releasing toxic chemicals such as mercury and cyanide into the environment and generating about 20 tons of waste for every gold ring that is produced.

Brilliant Earth, the global leader in ethical origin fine jewelry, offers a wide selection of diamond engagement rings that are eco-friendly, luxurious, and stunning. All of our diamonds and gemstones are certified to originate from socially and environmentally-responsible sources. Precious metals can be recycled repeatedly with no degradation in quality, so we use only recycled gold and platinum in our engagement rings, thus eliminating the need for dirty gold mining. We also offer a range of designs, many of them nature-inspired.  Select our Blossom Ring for her and you’ll get lifelong credit for giving her flowers!

Just because you’ve selected the perfect conflict free diamond ring (that she’s been hinting about) does not guarantee that your marriage proposal will be entirely green. All of that eco-friendly engagement ring shopping could be cancelled out if, as you get down on bended knee, you accidentally step on an endangered species or somehow cause an oil spill. Thus, to make sure that your proposal is thoroughly green, we’ve also thought of a few ways to “green up” some classic proposal ideas:

The Treasure Hunt Proposal: A creative way to propose is to design a treasure hunt. Usually this involves making a series of clues that lead her from destination to destination. You show up at the end of the treasure hunt to propose. Some guys make the mistake of forcing their eco-conscious girlfriends to drive around town. Instead, suggest to her that the two of you do some trash cleanup at a park or beach. If she’s as green as you think, this will actually sound to her like a great idea. Have your messages spread out along the park or beach in recyclable bottles.

The Fortune Cookie Proposal: One proposal idea you’ll probably run across is to have a special message baked into her fortune cookie.  The message itself might pop the question, or it might just give her an important alert: “You will soon receive a special ring.” But fortune cookies don’t have to be yellow; they can be colored whatever you want. To make the “green” theme prominent, arrange for her to receive a green fortune cookie. Be sure to make the message out of recycled paper. Then present her with the ring, explaining its eco-friendly origins.

The Sky-writing Proposal: Who said that flashy proposals can’t be eco-friendly? Another classic proposal idea is take your girl to a beautiful spot—a park, beach, or mountaintop—and hire a plane to skywrite those four magic words in the sky. As she glances up, she’ll be overjoyed, but have qualms about the fuel being consumed by the plane. No worries. Ask her to look up at the sky again as the plane continues with the following words: “Carbon offsets purchased to make this proposal.” You’ll want to really buy the offsets too.

The Heart Felt Proposal:  Sometimes the best proposals do not involve elaborate planning but carefully chosen words. If you’re at a loss for the proper vocabulary to express your feelings, consider drawing upon some environmental buzzwords. Many of them will resonate with your earth-friendly lady. Words that help: organic, sustainable, hybrid, renewable, stewardship, growth. Words to avoid: pollution, particulate matter, fecal coliform bacteria, waste, gas.

So just remember: Green marriage proposals begin with the ring, but that’s not all. An eco-friendly marriage proposal requires a little bit of forethought. Fortunately, Brilliant Earth stands ready to help you select the perfect ring, and to help you think through the rest of your proposal. As you shop for rings, free to share with us your green proposal ideas. And good luck!