Rachel from EcoStiletto did a bang up job on Friday morning — putting the first Green Blogger Conference together. It was a smashing success. Rachel wrote that 50 bloggers attended, but it seemed like there were closer to 100 people milling about and gabbing. Mostly gorgeous women. A room full. Who would have known!

Presenters at GreenBlog Conference | 11/6/09

From left to right, Jane Buckingham of Trendera.com, Kim Barnouin of HealthyBitchDaily.com, Siel Ju of GreenLAGirl.com, Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff of EcoStiletto.com, Starre Vartan of Eco-Chick.com, Lauren Selman of ReelGreenMedia.com and Jen Boulden of IdealBite.com

The photo includes all the women on the panel. The discussion ranged from Facebook stalkers to how to ethically handle product reviews. There was a great discussion about a writer’s voice, how personal should blog posts be? What is the difference between old school journalism and blogging. Everyone agreed with Jen, that the climate change situation is critical and more needs to be done to pressure real change.  Lifestyle green activism is important — but so is political activism. This is a subject I struggle with on green weddings.  Who wants to hear doom and gloom? Weddings are all about love and looking forward.

The energy was terrific — really open and friendly. There were are number of green wedding bloggers there — but didn’t know and missed meeting them.

Next time. Next year ???

Thanks to Environment  and Green Works for hosting. Really lovely furniture and great gift bags from all the sponsors.  Will thank all the gift bag sponsors on the Invitesite blog.  A lot of the gifts are handmade – -and I know what it’s like staying up late putting together gift packets!

Think of the Positive

Green Weddings are getting more and more popular. Which is great!!!

Unfortunately, that means that “scraper” sites (blog-type sites that steal content from other sites, or just make stuff up with lots of key words to generate ad revenue) with supposed eco information, are getting more and more prevalent.

This advice, for example:

When considering place cards, think outside of the box and use a recycled or recyclable material instead of paper.

Is totally lame.

Paper is both recyclable and can be made from 100% post consumer recycled fiber.

Besides, paper has only been made out of trees for about 125 years. Paper can be made out of 500 other cellulose fibers.

The rest of the post was full of inane sentences with links to non-green websites.

Just makes me crazy!

The positive take on all this muddiness — is that most environmentally conscious couples are way too bright and way too savvy.

Organic Tomatoes

As a devotee of organic farmer’s markets and raw foods for almost 20 years now, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma.

We buy about 80% of all our food from local farmer’s markets.

This year, Scott, Cindy and I  started a vegetable garden.  So far, we’ve produced hundreds and hundreds of delicious, gorgeous heirloom tomatoes. So, I have not bought even one tomato this year.

I have farmer’s market guilt.

Which I make up for, buying other produce from my favorite organic farmers. (And foisting much of it on Invitesite staff!)

But, this has made me think about green cannibalism. (just a dreadful term, yes??)

The urban farming movement is really taking off. But, urban gardening is most likely practiced by people who would buy their produce from local, small farmers.

Wouldn’t effect conventional growers at all.

So, the urban gardening movement will have the largest impact on small, local, organic farmers, in terms of decreasing their business.

Likewise — I’ve noticed that the current trend toward green weddings has actually had a somewhat negative effect on a number of green vendors.

There is a big trend to make floral designs from paper – instead of using real organically grown flowers. (And any company growing flowers organically, are already doing things 5 times as hard as they would do, growing flowers conventionally)

The green trend is not changing how conventional floral designers work at all. Most of their customers just don’t care.

Will the green movement have the effect of actually harming many green vendors?

Interesting dilemma.

We love Idealbite, and they have put together a good basic guide for Green Weddings – and events for that matter.

Idealbite Green Wedding Guide

We’re happy that they mentioned Invitesite– as a recommendation for green wedding invitations .

(Unfortunately, they mentioned us for soy inks, which we do not use. We use linseed oil based inks, which are superior in terms of printing properties, and superior in terms of the environment. Linseed oil is made from flax seed).

UPDATE: Idealbite is so totally on their game — they corrected the soy inks bit-bite the next day!   Which is another reason why we love Idealbite. They are really about getting it right.

We just launched a new blog at Invitesite.com. Please visit and check it out for invitation and wedding ideas (both green and just weddings).

We’ll be rebuilding and relaunching Green Weddings and the Green Wedding Blog next year with a bunch of new features. Until then….

Great Gift idea: While buying heirloom tomatoes this weekend, at Tomatomania, we met a lovely neighbor, Connor, who makes really lovely garden boxes on wheels.

We all live in the still wild hills between downtown LA and Pasadena and gophers are very previlent. (Since they live in the ground, you never really notice them unless you plant a garden.) Gophers love those juicy garden roots.

Boxed gardens are great for apartment dwellers, or if you have to move your garden to follow the shade or sun. Or, if gophers eat your plants!

WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced that InviteSite as won the 2009 Bride’s Choice Awards!

In its inaugural year, the Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and honors vendors from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost and flexibility. This year’s recipients represent the top three percent of WeddingWire’s vendor community, which includes over 100,000 wedding vendors from across the US. That means InviteSite is one of the very best makers of wedding invitations.

Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the company, the Bride’s Choice Awards are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds through surveys and reviews.

We are excited to launch this annual award program to honor high-performing vendors based solely on the experiences of our WeddingWire community, according to Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. This year’s recipients have set the bar high, exhibiting excellent service and expertise in the wedding industry.

InviteSite would like to thank our past clients for speaking on our behalf and helping us win the 2009 Bride’s Choice Award!

Beautiful Bridal wrote a very funny post today:

http://beautiful-bridal.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-dont-want-green-wedding-and-you-cant.html

What makes brides afraid of the word g-r-e-e-n? It could be:

1. Hemp wedding dresses and cheesecloth veils
2. Bouquets made of turnip, carrot and cucumber flowers
3. Personalized brown paper bag favors full of compost
4. His and her John Deere tattoos
5. Rings made from melted-down fillings from Grandma’s teeth
6. Graham cracker and flaxseed wedding cakes
7. Free 8 x 10 from Sears instead of a bridal portrait
8. Canned food station at the reception
9. Bridesmaids with hairy armpits
10. Honeymoon in his parent’s spare room

(From Co-op America’s “25 Ways to Green the World”)

At its heart, a green economy is a community of people meeting each others’ needs — and there are many creative ways to connect and prosper without using money.

Okay, so how does this concept work for weddings. What can we trade or barter, and can our friends give time or talent, in lieu of a physical gift? What can we, as a couple, give or barter?

Couples that we’ve worked with, have practiced this from the beginning of our business.

One bride actually made and sent invitations to her “invitation assembly party”! If you have a friend who is a graphic designer or web designer, he or she can help you design your invites, or make you a wedding website.

Organize a get together to make edible favors? I think food made with love is one of the best presents, especially in a world full of meaningless chotchkies.

For hardcore greenies, you can organize a tree planting bridal shower. Follow with a hike, home spa treatments? Professional massage? Bring cameras, and, at the end of it all, put together a special album. Every once in a while, you can all get together and see how high your trees have grown.

For the past 6 months, the color gray has been promoted in fashion tomes and some wedding pages as the “new” chocolate — as the trendy wedding color. But, with the economy in the doldrums for at least the next few months, is gray just a bit too … dull? I’m having a hard time getting excited about it. Mustard yellow? Smashing. Silver or pewter? Right on. Maybe gray is just too mineral and not enough vegetable.