Eco-chic Strawberry Fields Wedding

Welcome to summer, that busy party time! I’m Melissa Wagner-Gens, Resident Green Event Expert for Eco-party Time and owner of Emerald Events & Weddings. Today, we’re going to discuss a favorite topic of mine – how to throw an amazing eco-chic wedding. Our first summer theme is a luscious one – Strawberries. Red, ripe, wonderfully sweet strawberries are in season most places from May to August. Using a seasonal fruit is a great, inexpensive way to green a theme.

For great picture and pops of color, place these red paper parasols in trees or from the ceilings of your venues. Milk glass vases and accents make a great contrast to the bright red and multi greens used in this theme. Another inexpensive but great décor addition is red burlap, which you can buy at most fabric stores. You can use this material to cover tables, as a photo booth backdrop or as draping. This material can be re-used for many other themes of events – Wizard of Oz, Carnival, Transportation, Fire Fighter, etc.

Imported flowers leave a huge carbon footprint. Did you know you can make a strawberry wedding bouquet using long-stemmed strawberries and herbs? I used curly parsley, but you could use other herbs just as well for an equally beautiful look. For do-it-yourself strawberry centerpieces, I did two – one based off of a 1920’s vintage drawing that was used I the wedding invitation and one of my own design. For the first, I used a milk glass cake plate and arranged strawberries concentrically. The whimsical tea cup centerpiece was made by spreading curly lettuce open, placing a head of cabbage inside, and attaching strawberries to the cabbage with toothpicks. Easy peasy, right?

Desserts are always a great place to customize your wedding theme. Times are changing and many of today’s weddings feature dessert bars instead of one main cake. If you are planning on serving cupcakes, these red and white Hannah, Olivia, or Lulu recycled linen cupcake wrappers will make your cakes pop! Our dessert display featured make-your-own strawberry shortcakes, cherry pies in mason jars, strawberry-shaped chocolate cake pops & decorated sugar cookie favors packaged in red striped Itty Bitty bags.

As any parent knows, the key to keeping kidlets happy at a wedding or other event is lots of activities. For this wedding, I recommend these Color Your Own Organic Cookie sets. Ecopartytime has one for boys and one for girls. What better way to foster a child’s love of nature than with a plantable berry favor?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this how to on planning a succulent strawberry wedding. Make sure to send us pictures of your eco-chic strawberry wedding or event! Until next time… Wishing you “Love, Laughter & Happily Ever After. . .” TM