6 Sustainable Wedding Tips + Styled Eco-Friendly Wedding in Oahu, HI

Last Updated on April 25, 2024 by Karma Hill

Living in Hawaii gives you an undeniable sense of our planet’s beauty and the importance of living sustainably. From Hawaii’s lush green mountains and jungles to our tropical blue oceans and lively coral reefs, we cherish our islands natural magnificence. A sustainable wedding is not just eco-friendly but rather an elevated level of wedding planning. As wedding coordinators in Oahu, HI it is our duty to help clients design their wedding experience to be more “green” adding to the overall beauty.

BELOW ARE 6 TIPS FOR HAVING AN EARTH-FRIENDLY SUSTAINABLE WEDDING

Also, check out the styled shoot at the bottom to see just how to accomplish an eco-friendly wedding”.

1. KEEP YOUR GUEST COUNT SMALL

At Simple Oahu Wedding, we specialize in intimate weddings because less can be so much more and we believe Simplicity = Beauty. There are many benefits of a small wedding, from cost savings to the quality time you get to spend with each guest. Keeping wedding guest count small reduces the environmental impact of your wedding. It’s estimated that one round-trip flight between New York and California, generates about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that your car would emit over an entire year. The fewer people you have flying and driving from far distances to your wedding, the smaller the environmental impact.

2. HAVE YOUR RECEPTION AT A RESTAURANT

A private reception in an epic location looks amazing in photos and has lots of options for decor and design. However the more “Disposable Details” you include in your wedding, the more waste goes into the local landfill. When you are on an island with limited land, it’s very important to reduce the amount of wedding waste to decrease pressure on the local infrastructure.

Restaurants are a great option for an eco-friendly reception. They often already have a great deal of reception dinner decor. Restaurants can usually reuse the flowers from their wedding arch for table centerpieces and almost always have candles. There is a significant cost saving having your reception at a restaurant as well because you don’t have to rent everything down to the forks. You can easily spend $15- $30 dollars per guest renting table settings for a venue style reception dinner and you haven’t even got food on your plate yet.

Many restaurants in Hawaii use locally sourced ingredients reducing the distance your food has to travel. Meanwhile when food is shipped it increases the carbon footprint of your reception dinner or brunch. Most importantly you can find ocean-friendly certified restaurants by the Surfrider Foundation to make your reception even more sustainable! See Ocean Friendly Certified restaurants on Oahu.

3. USE LOCALLY SOURCED FLOWERS

Hawaii is full of beautiful flowers that grow year-round here. If you want something that doesn’t grow here, it has to be flown from somewhere else increasing your carbon footprint. Why insist on Peonies when you can similarly get lush fresh Protea?

Local flowers add a sense of place to your wedding rather than importing flowers. Embracing the local flora and fauna adds to the specialness of a wedding. Our styled shoot below features locally sourced flowers harvested in Oahu. The vibrant colors on the arch set against the striking green mountains are simply gorgeous and complement the location! The floral for the below eco-friendly wedding shoot was designed by the local floral shop Sweet Blossoms Hawaii.

4. RENT YOUR WEDDING DRESS

According to sustainyourstyle.org, clothing has become disposable. As a result, we generate more and more textile waste. A family in the western world throws away an average of 30 kg or 66 lbs of clothing each year. Only 15% is recycled or donated, and the rest goes directly to the landfill or is incinerated. Reduce your wedding’s environmental footprint by renting your clothes so they can be reused. Many people think of renting the Groom’s suit, but there are lots of perfect island wedding dresses available to rent as well! We rented our model’s dress from Rent the Runway a service where you can rent special occasion dresses as well as everyday fashion.

5. RENT AN ELECTRIC CAR

You would be surprised how many cars there are on an island as small as Oahu. The more you can reduce the toxins that gas-powered vehicles produce and put into the environment the more you can feel good about cruising the island with zero emissions! You can rent electric vehicles through most rental agencies and even easier on Turo the car-sharing app. When you use Turo you are also supporting a local family rather than just a big rental car agency. We rented a Tesla model 3 for this shoot from a local resident through Turo click the link above to rent this model 3.

6. USE NATURE AS YOUR DECOR

When thinking of having a sustainable wedding the key is to really get back to nature and enjoy earth’s beauty. By surrounding yourself with nature as your wedding backdrop you don’t need to bring in a lot of stuff to make your wedding beautiful. I know all the wedding blogs and magazines are constantly pushing “More Stuff”, “More Details”!! The truth is it’s just more stuff to have to manage and more stuff to have to throw away.

When you decrease the amount of “wedding stuff” you instantly become closer to a sustainable wedding and are on your way to an eco-friendly marriage experience!

Simple Oahu Wedding – Team

By employing just a few of these sustainable wedding tips you can make your wedding more eco-friendly yet still stress-free. Our whole company philosophy is stress-free wedding planning and our wedding coordinators are happy to help you embrace a more environmentally friendly wedding!

SEE THE ENTIRE ECO-FRIENDLY WEDDING – BELOW

ABOUT THIS SUSTAINABLE WEDDING-STYLED SHOOT IN OAHU, HI

We chose the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club as our venue for this shoot as it shows off the natural epic beauty of Hawaii! We love that you can take an electric golf cart ride about 5 minutes to a LUSH tropical wild jungle. You can see our Oahu Wedding package at this awesome venue on our website here.

We rented the gorgeous Badgley Mischka gown from Rent the Runway and we loved the simplicity of the lines and the romantic swooped back.

The bridal hair and makeup were done by our friends at Reveal, the soft curls and bold lip look was perfect with the vibrant flower crown.

The locally sourced floral was designed by Sweet Blossoms Hawaii, how gorgeous is that cascading white orchid bouquet!

The hexagon arch was rented from Aloha Artisans. We love the sleek yet simple design of it and how well it went with the dark wood chairs. It added to the natural scenery without taking attention away from it.

Of course, our favorite Oahu wedding photography company, Karma Hill Photography, took these epic wedding photos!

Special thanks to our models Megan and Tim. Megan is one of the photographers at Karma Hill Photography so not only is she great behind the camera, she is stunning in front of it! Thanks to her boyfriend Tim for playing along 🙂