Last week, I wrote the first instalment of my green, frugal wedding series by talking about how I was foregoing traditional paper invitations in favour of electronic invites and wedding websites. Today, I’m going to talk about food and drink, another issue where you can either stick to traditions, be green, be frugal or better yet, be both.
As I said last week, being either frugal or environmentally responsible when it comes to weddings often requires you to challenge the status quo or the established wedding traditions, and food is no exception when it comes to this. In our case, we are challenging the established traditions about as much as possible, but I’ll get to that in a second.
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I’m getting married this summer. Yay me!! When I started this blog, one of the things I knew I wanted to write about was how to have a wedding that is both green and frugal. Because it is possible! Much like anything else in life, you do not have to spend a fortune to be environmentally responsible. And if you choose to have an eco-friendly wedding, you can make a statement to your guests – whether that’s intentional or not is up to you.
Meet Jill. Jill has a Master’s degree, works an average job and makes $60,000/year. She is loyal to her company, and they reward her with an annual average increase of 3%/year over the course of her 30 year career. Jill is a diligent saver, and every year saves 20% of her gross income. Over the course of 30 years, through financial up and downs, she earns an average 5% annual return. At the end of a 30 year career, Jill has a retirement portfolio valued at $1.14 million dollars.
My plans to start this blog earlier were mildly derailed by a minor life crisis. I’m downplaying it, but it was really rather huge. Last year, in a similar crisis of conscience, I left my well-paying job to go back to school and complete a PhD.