Succombing to the latest fad

I'm foregoing the pink princess parties and the "Love Beyond Measure" souvenir measuring spoons given out as wedding party favors; I am doing no walking down any aisle to be given away by my poor father, who has already given me away once, only to find me bouncing back like a particular bad gift in a white elephant gift-giving circle; I won't be enveloping myself in several thousand yards of polyester Priscilla of Boston; I will not force my to-be husband into an ill-fitting, rented tux, nor my dearest female friends and relations into taffeta dresses with big bows adorning their backsides; I won't wear any kind of veil, and I will have nothing to do with birds' nests; I won't fill tiny little boxes with jelly beans or Sweet Hearts to pass out as party favors; I won't have a line of trumpet players from the local high school band blare out All You Need Is Love to signal the end of the marriage rites.

In short, I am foregoing many trends, old and new, that the wedding magazine industry plugs and repackages and replugs.

However, I am (we are) going to succumb to one early 21st century trend and marker of stylish weddings; we've decided to do it green, or at least as green as possible, short of growing our own food for the party. This means recycled paper for the invites, figuring out a location that is closest to the bulk of the invited, local ingredients for foods as much as possible, locally grown flowers, no standard disposable plates and such, and, finally, buying carbon offsets for the whole affair and having that be our "party favor" to our guests so they don't feel [too] guilty about using the resources to come.

As for that latter, the purchasing of carbon offsets looks to me like a rip-off racket opportunity of magnificent proportions, so if any of you know of truly reputable organizations in the offset business, let me know. One I've checked out, terrapass.com -- which even has a calculator for determining what your wedding's footprint is, including guests' travel -- seems interesting but one can never be too sure.

I almost feel embarrassed about doing all this, because the 'green wedding' is treated as such a trendy trend, the latest thing all the kidz are doing (that and birds' nests), as brought to you by Martha Stewart. That said, it's a fad that strikes me as unusually sensible. So there you are.

I will not, however, under any circumstances, wear a dress made from hemp fiber, nor will David wear the ganja suit, either. Nope.