Eco-Friendly Stationery How To's

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One of the easiest ways to go green for your wedding or event is to make your invitations eco-friendly. There are tons of vendors out there who offer eco-friendly invitation products (myself included), but what exactly makes an invitation eco-friendly?

1. The Paper, Stock and Materials. There are several different paper options for today's brides and party hosts. Recycled seems to be the obvious choice for eco-friendly invitations, but there are other options as well. Many vendors offer FSC Certified stocks, which are created from trees from sustainable forests and processed in mills using sustainable energy. Another option would be to go with 100% cotton paper. Most cotton papers are tree-free, and created using leftover cotton linters leftover from the textile industry. Paper vendors are also getting more and more creative. There are several that now offer papers embedded with seeds, so your guests can plant them after your event as passed. That's a unique way to recycle your guests won't soon forget!


2. The Printing Process. Vegetable and soy based inks are preferable over petroleum based inks. These inks are low in VOC's and better for the environment. Choose single color printing over multiple colors can lessen the environmental impact as well. Another less thought of printing choice is digital offset, which doesn't use the same film and chemical process to create the plates to print your invitations. Also when choosing a printer, several use green energy to run their presses, making them a greener option.


3. The Number of Pieces. Take into consideration to order the number of invitations you think you'll need and not to way overestimate them to eliminate waste. Also, if you can try to condense as much information onto a minimum number of insertion cards to not only save you money, but also to prevent waste as well. Having a wedding website makes it easy to do this, being you can post additional information about your wedding (like hotel information) as well as give guests a place to RSVP on the Internet.

Does anyone have any green printing tips I might have missed? Please share!