Steal this Idea

My life as a wedding blogger makes me feel guilty sometimes. I routinely publish beautiful weddings that I know are producing hundreds of pounds of garbage and stomping a big-ole carbon footprint on the planet.. My own wedding would have produced much more had we not kept the leftovers to nosh on for the following few day, recycled our beer and wine bottles, and recycled, sold, and kept many of our decorations. But I still think of all those little brown wrappers from our cookie favors that went into the trash, and the travel costs of many of opur out-of-town guests, and all the flower centerpieces that we did not compost, and all that wasted food and the party and my heart sinks a little. Not because Earth day was last week, but because I have long been philosophically attracted to the green movement and tried to mitigate my impact on the world.

Image from Wentzu Chang via Snippet and Ink

So when I saw this little gem of a photo, I had to save it. In fact, it's been in my inspiration folder for a long, long time. When I first saw it, I told a little story in my head about this wedding. That they tried not to create anything new with their wedding, opting instead to use what they already had: An old Baja blanket they bought on vacation for their chuppah; scraps from the woodpile in the back yard for a planter; mother or sister's favorite summer dress and everybody's best Sunday suit. And in the moment the photographer took this picture, they set in their minds that this would be their tradition. That each year they would plant a tree to celebrate their anniversary and to honor life on this planet.

Today is John James Audubon's birthday. I was originally thinking of doing a bird post, but it's easy to slip into feather inspiration, and Audubon was dead-set against millenaries. After some thought, I remembered this picture. Hey, birds need habitats (read: trees & forests), and with deforestation still a global problem, I thought it more fitting to highlight reforestation, however symbolic.