Conscious Vault

A wedding suppliers guide to introducing sustainability to your couples

Mar 5, 2023

If you are a business operating in the wedding industry and have a commitment to being eco-friendly, then this wedding suppliers guide to introducing sustainability to your couples should help you with that tricky task of getting your clients on the same page. We’ve put together some points to help you to guide your couples with making more sustainable decisions with their wedding, so that you can operate within your values, attract right type of clients and maybe convert some who hadn’t even considered sustainability in the first place.

 

Wedding suppliers guide to introducing sustainability to your couples – what to think about…

 

– Overall awareness

– Planning

– Finding sustainable solutions

– Selling sustainability to your couples – your brand

 

Introducing sustainability to your couples – Overall awareness

One of the key things when introducing sustainability as a concept to the couples you want to work with is working on getting their overall awareness of the issue at the front of their consciousness. You are looking to get them into a place where they understand the issues presented by weddings on the environment, they empathise with the situation and feel compelled to do something about it. Most couples are caught up in the excitement and trepidation of their upcoming celebration and the impact of their wedding on the planet may not be at the forefront of their thinking. That is not to say they don’t care, but that it hasn’t been in their consideration. As an ethical wedding supplier you can help to increase their overall awareness through:

  • Your brand messaging across your online presence
  • Incorporating into your consultation process
  • Including fact sheets into your onboarding process
  • Creating impact scores for choices available to your couples

By incorporating statistics and facts in with value statements when selling and onboarding your clients you can help to increase the overall awareness of the carbon impact of weddings and why sustainability should be something they prioritise as part of their planning.

 

Introducing sustainability into planning with your couples

Whether you are a wedding venue with hundreds of points to consider when planning with your couples, or a specialist wedding cake maker with a few select decisions to make, incorporating the impact of decisions with regards to their impact can help your couples to be introduced to being more sustainable.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to create an impact score for the choices available to your couples. This doesn’t have to be a sophisticated audit/analysis, but could be something as simple as green/greener/greenest as a scale. Creating a matrix which clearly allows couples to make decisions as part of the planning process that will have an impact on the overall footprint created by their wedding allows them to make conscious decisions without compromising their experience.

 

Finding sustainable solutions

If you have already firmly embedded sustainability into your business then you will likely have a bank of sustainable solutions for your clients – or not offer an alternative! If you are new to introducing sustainability into your wedding business then you may not have built up that solution bank as much, and this could be something that you incorporate into your couples experience – that you explore the options together for the products/services you provide.

Related: 30 ways a wedding supplier can be more sustainable in business

A key thing to remember is to communicate the sustainable credentials that you demonstrate behind the scenes. From how you select and manage your digital operations through to your back end recycling policy, ensuring you demonstrate to your clients that working with a sustainable wedding supplier is more than just ditching the plastic straws the more you will be able to create a significant impact together.

 

Selling sustainability to your couples – your brand

The most effective way to introduce sustainability to your couples as a wedding supplier is to ensure that the concept is intrinsically woven into your brand and its messaging. Areas to address to ensure the right messaging:

  • Your website
  • Your social media channels
  • Online mentions/features
  • Your email marketing
  • Your network
  • Your supply chain
  • Your extra-curricular activity

At every touch point in your business you have an opportunity to introduce sustainability to your couples. Your messaging is your chance to inform and educate on key topics, trends and issues, as well as entertain your clients with inspiration on the art of the possible. You can support them with making ethical transactions, and navigate them to the most sustainable options.

It would be easy as a conscious wedding supplier to think that you shouldn’t need to sell sustainability to your clients. As key supporters of the sustainable wedding ethos we make decisions based on those values. Couples however, have come together to create and celebrate a union – so they might not have saving the planet top of their list! That is not to say that they are not your ideal clients, although having consistent messaging will help to ensure you do attract those with values aligned to yours, but through implementing these considerations into the infrastructure of your business, you can convert those couples and introduce them to sustainability when it isn’t something they considered before, but do care about.

Introducing sustainability to your couples as wedding supplier can be an enlightening experience. When couples realise the impact they can have – both positive and negative, the decisions that you can support them with can have a significant impact, whilst also creating those magical experiences that couples crave. By supporting with their overall awareness, helping with planning and finding sustainable solutions in line with their expectations from an experience perspective, you’ll be able to use your brand as a force for good in the wedding industry. Want to take your journey further? Get in touch to discuss how the Sustainable Wedding Alliance can help your brand to make a difference in the industry, and grow to help even more conscious couples.

 

Be confident when talking about sustainability with your couples

To help wedding professionals feel more confident when talking to couples about sustainability, we’ve developed Carbon Literacy Training for Wedding Professionals. The course is designed specifically for those working in the wedding industry and will give you the knowledge and the tools you need to be confident when talking about climate change. You will learn the basics of climate science and what is happening with the climate emergency, how this will impact the industry, you and your couples. It will also give you practical actions that you can take to become more sustainable both as an individual and at work or within the community.

The course is accredited by the Carbon Literacy Project, and on successful completion of your Carbon Literacy training, after submitting your actions, you can become certified as ‘Carbon Literate’, joining more than 40,000 others, and including business leaders across multiple sectors. By taking part in this course, you will join individuals and team members across other businesses including the NHS, Patagonia and the BBC to become ‘Carbon Literate’, helping to embed a widespread low-carbon culture

We courses both in person and online – check out our events page for the latest course dates.

Have questions? Get in touch

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