CommentsWeddings & Celebrations
Treading Lightly Down the Aisle
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. This was our grandmothers’ wedding refrain, and people would scurry to collect said items so that the bride would be ensured lifelong happiness. The old represented a link to her past; the new, a hope for the future; the borrowed guaranteed she could rely on friends and family; and the blue was considered a symbol of love. But today, many betrothed couples are placing fresh significance on the traditional mantra. For these wedding planners, the old is the planet, and they wish to love and honor it along with each other. By making new ceremony choices that support our biosphere, they lead the way for those to come and respect what they will leave behind. After all, the Earth is only borrowed. And while its oceans are blue, the latest wedding color seems to be green. Ceremonies of green are becoming so common, in fact, that a new lyrical phrase has been coined: the eco-chic wedding. So it is that loving the world while showing the world you love each other has become hip.
Take Jenny Brown and Doug Abel. In 2004 they had just purchased the acreage in Willow that would become the charitable, nonprofit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Brown and Abel were preparing to create a haven for abandoned, neglected, and abused farm animals. To celebrate their new home and refuge, they chose to wed on their land, under the sun and set against the Catskills. The bride’s bouquet was made of wildflowers friends had picked from their grounds, her MoMo Falana dress was hand-dyed with eco-friendly pigments, and her ring was forged of platinum, a metal strong enough to withstand the wear and tear of daily farm work. Their 110 guests gave contributions to the sanctuary in lieu of conventional gifts and sat on hay bales while appreciating a vegan feast lovingly catered by eco-conscious New World Home Cooking of Saugerties. Mock chicken curry salad, chili-spiced seitan cutlets, Cuban black beans, and a chocolate cake of unrelenting richness were a few of the items on the impressive menu. As veganism is a key practice for Brown and Abel, their ceremony included readings from Diet for a New America by John Robbins, the renowned 1987 book on the cruelties of the meat industry and the health hazards of an animal-based diet.
“Being vegan is a way of treading more lightly on the Earth,” Brown explains as we sip coffee with soy creamer in her kitchen and three five-week-old rescue lambs bleat behind a baby gate nearby. “For us, being vegan equates to being green. Our wedding was a continuation of all that we believe in.”