Go Eco-friendly with Digital Wedding Invitations

Newly engaged and searching for ways to make your wedding more eco-friendly? You’re not the only one! Being conscious about the environment is one of the modern wedding couple’s biggest priorities.

There are so many ways to make a positive impact with your big day and one of the best is to go eco-friendly with digital wedding invitations. Not only are you saving on unnecessary waste by opting for wedding e-vites, you don’t have to compromise on style either - they can be just as elegant as paper invitations, and can perfectly match your wedding theme. There really is no right or wrong way to choose between digital or paper invitations (or you might opt for a blend of both?), but if you keep reading we will share some handy tips and reasons why digital wedding invitations are the eco-friendlier option, and can help to make your wedding celebrations more sustainable.

Eco-friendly digital wedding invitations

People the world over are becoming much more aware of how to search for ethical companies and ways to become more eco-friendly in their day to day lives. Not only will this make you feel better about your upcoming wedding, guests will also be pleased that you have chosen an eco-friendly option too. Using paper invitations directly contributes to deforestation which reduces animal habitats, the amount of green space around the world and has an impact on oxygen levels. Paper wedding invitations and other wedding stationery are a one-time expense, for a single occasion, which means they cannot be reused. Most guests will eventually throw away your invitation which will add to the extra carbon emissions used to cut the trees down to make the paper.

Are your wedding invitations recyclable?

Another reason to go digital with your wedding invitations is that the majority of traditional paper invites are made using unrecyclable materials. Foil, glitter, plastic, metal; these materials can’t be included in your paper recycling. Even if a sentimental family member decides to keep your invitation, it’s good to be aware that the paper that was used for the invitations might not have been made in an environmentally-friendly way, potentially causing more waste in the process. Standard ink is also not an eco-friendly product, which could be considered as another reason to avoid going down the traditional paper invitation route and taking everything online.

Let’s take a look at the figures

Sending out a digital wedding invitation does have a carbon footprint, (everything does), but only that of 4g. Whereas a paper invitation has a far more significant carbon footprint of 200g. Additionally to the 200g, posting the paper invitation adds a further 29g of carbon emissions (per invite) to your wedding. Therefore, if you’re an eco-friendly advocate, going digital will help significantly lower your carbon footprint and make you feel guilt-free about throwing that big one-off celebration!

Digital wedding invitations are not only better for the environment, but they might be a better option for you too. You can immediately save time by not having to mull over intricate calligraphy styles or paper qualities, and you can also save a considerable amount of money. Creating a wedding website in conjunction with digital wedding invitations is a great way to get information over to your guests whilst being able to edit, tweak and keep in touch with your guests along the way. If you’re intrigued, at Say I do we offer a free wedding website set up!

As you can see, going digital with your wedding invitations can help reduce deforestation, reduces pollution, reduces ink toxicity, reduces the use of fossil fuels, and reduces landfill waste. Ok, it may be difficult to do all these things alone, but the modern couples who opt for more environmentally-friendly options around their wedding day will be helping to make a difference to our planet, one little step at a time.