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Your wedding day has finally come and gone. Congratulations, you’re married! Now, what do you do with all of your leftover wedding decorations? Your wedding dress? The flowers? There has to be a better option than just throwing everything away or stashing it in the back of the closet to never see the light of day again! After doing a little research, I came up with a list of five different ways to recycle items from your wedding day.
Flowers
Flowers are a perishable item, but they do have a lifespan that is longer than your wedding day. Donating flowers is a great way to clean up while also repurposing materials! Have guests take bouquets home at the end of the night to decorate their homes. Many guests would be happy to take home a free vase of flowers! After all, who doesn’t love seeing fresh flowers in their kitchen?
Donating flowers to hospitals and/or nursing homes is another option when it comes to extending the life of your bouquets. This is a great way to cheer up patients and bring a little life and color into a place that isn’t always the happiest. Contact local nursing homes and hospitals to find out exactly how to donate to them.
Alternatively, flowers can be professionally dried or pressed. Flowers are a major component to most weddings and can hold many special memories of your big day. Having a bouquet professionally dried or pressed is a great way to ensure that your flowers will be preserved correctly and last for many years to come!
The Dress
A wedding dress is one of the most treasured items, yet it often ends up sitting in the back of a closet taking up space. There are many ways to repurpose and reshape a wedding dress to make it reusable for future occasions. Take your dress to a tailor and have it reshaped to create something new! Turn it into a cocktail or evening dress or maybe even a two-piece top and skirt combination. It could also be turned into a baptism or christening gown for a child. There are so many possibilities!
Of course, donating your dress is always an option too! There are plenty of great sites that take wedding dress donations and give them to a bride who might not be able to afford a dress otherwise. This way, you’ll not only be saving space in your closet, but you’ll be giving the opportunity for someone else to wear a beautiful dress on their wedding day.
Party Favors
Often in weddings, couples purchase party favors for guests, but they end up forgotten in the venue. Instead of throwing these items away, consider donating or reselling them to avoid waste. Depending on the party favors, there are different options for donation. Just taking a minute to look up local donation spots in your area that accept your party favors will help to reduce waste while helping others.
Often, there are many other brides who might want to purchase your leftover party favors. Things like bubbles, sparklers, or anything else might just be what another bride is looking for. If they can purchase discounted party favors from you and you avoid waste, it’s a win win!
Food
The crux with food at an event is that you don’t want too little, but you also don’t want too much. As a result, there are almost always leftovers! Ask your guests if any of them would be interested in taking a plate of food home with them. Or, you can ask your catering company or venue if they have options to donate leftover food. Sometimes they will already have a plan in place for what to do with the extra containers of untouched food. This way the leftovers don’t have to be thrown away and can instead go to feed those in need of a meal!
Centerpiece Decorations
Depending on the style of decor you used in your wedding, some items could be reused in your home. Consider putting a centerpiece on your mantle or coffee table. Pinterest is full of ideas on how to reimagine and reinvent centerpieces to make them a perfect fit for your living room!
Now, if you have a large centerpiece on every single table, it might be a bit much to take everything home and decorate your house with it. Ask guests if they want to take any home with them or research local resale sites for brides looking for discounted centerpiece decorations.
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Published September 19, 2019 to weddingsinathens.com. http://www.weddingsinathens.com/five-ways-to-recycle-your-wedding-items/
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