What’s the environmental cost of flying halfway round the world to say ‘I do’?

Have you ever wondered how weddings and climate change are connected? It’s not as intangible as you might think.

This summer saw worldwide coverage of the Amazon rainforest in flames, bringing harrowing images and a necessary jolt of realism about the scale of the problem to our television screens and social media feeds. It brought the news that the polar icecaps are melting at an unprecedented rate, that we’re hurtling towards not one but four environmental tipping points (where the damage wrought on the planet by humans is deemed irreversible) and that 50 per cent of all living species could become extinct by 2100. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

At the same time, our social media feeds were alive with post after post of beaming couples celebrating their exciting futures together in exotic destinations, posing on beaches in Bali, vineyards in Tuscany or chapels in Las Vegas.

Getting married abroad has, it seems, become aspirational for many. In fact, between 2016 and 2017, overseas weddings rose by 14 per cent. But given that the most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is to fly less, the trend of flying yourself, your significant other and your wedding guests halfway around the world to say “I do” is a little jarring.

The past few years have seen a huge shift in our understanding of our impact on the environment, and how individuals can help to reduce it. The “Blue Planet effect”, spurred on by David Attenborough’s groundbreaking documentary, has shown how better educating consumers can influence behaviour at a personal and a business level.

“Heads of sustainability” have started popping up on the leadership teams of some of the world’s largest brands, signalling an acknowledgement of their impact on the climate, and acceptance of their responsibility to change it. Consumer expectations have evolved too: in 2019, we expect responsible business practices across supply chains. We expect brands to provide the most environmentally friendly and responsibly sourced products on the market.

Green is the new black, in many ways. But weddings haven’t quite caught up.

Despite an upsurge in the number of think pieces on the financial implication for your guests of having either a wedding or the stag and hen do abroad, the discussion around the environmental impact of these decisions is sparse. 

As we share more and more of our lives online, the concept of planning life events with an eye on how these experiences will translate to likes on social media has become the norm. Apps like Instagram have already revolutionised the tourism industry in many far-flung locations and as a result, have become a leading research tool for people planning their holidays. But it has also increased pressure to be more “interesting” or “individual” in our day-to-day lives, with often pernicious consequences for our mental health, our finances and the environment.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the same trend is true of weddings. Many recently engaged couples will look to social media for ideas on how to plan their special day. And “there definitely seems to be a growing trend for destination weddings”, Caroline Hendry, a wedding expert for Sorella and Co, says.

She believes that celebrity culture also plays a role, with many famous people “embracing the trend”. For many people, it’s become aspirational. Tradition dictates that weddings are often interpreted as a statement of someone’s position in society. And, although we’ve evolved in many ways in terms of how we view weddings and the concept of marriage as a whole, it seems that destination weddings have become a new status symbol among certain groups.

There are also other factors at play, though. Globalisation has a lot to answer for. Mass migration and political trends towards freedom of movement in the past few decades have meant that it is now more common to live somewhere entirely different to where you were born. This introduces logistical complications for many couples who are planning weddings. If, for instance, you live in a different country to most of your close family and friends, getting everyone in the same place is much more complex.

For Brits, the prospect of leaving grey and rainy weather for sunshine is also a big draw. Cost, too, has an impact, with many opting to marry abroad in the hope that it will reduce the overall price of their wedding. “With travel being so affordable and flights to Europe available for the same price as a train ticket across the UK, destination weddings have never been so accessible for couples and for guests,” Caroline tells me. Although, it’s obviously important to note that for UK couples, the pound’s depreciation against most other foreign currencies since the Brexit vote will have reduced potential savings.

For a lot of people, understandably, the scale of the task and the responsibility of the individual within that isn’t clear. A big driver of this is inconsistent messaging among politicians and a lack of clear communication and leadership at a policy level, creating unnecessary distance between those with the information to influence positive change, and those eager to contribute.

“Aviation is one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions worldwide, and reducing the amount of flights we take is an important way to limit our personal impact on the environment,” explains Gareth Redmond-King, head of climate change at WWF-UK. Although he’s quick to note that “relatively few of us take most of the flights” and that only collective action is capable of catalysing progress.

According to a study by Transport and Environment, an NGO campaigning for cleaner transport in Europe, if global aviation were a country, it would be ranked seventh between Germany and South Korea in CO2 emissions alone. But Lucy Gilliam, an aviation and shipping campaigner for the same organisation says that this statistic downplays the reality of the situation. “Burning fossil fuels at altitude has a multiplier effect,” she says, because the air is thinner. “Air travel is so normalised these days, that many people don’t realise just how big an impact it has on the environment. A return flight from London to New York is equivalent to a whole year driving a car for many people in terms of emissions.”

Even so, it is hard to comprehend the collective impact of asking your wedding guests to fly to watch you take your vows. For those curious to learn though, the International Civil Aviation Organisation has an online emissions calculator. To put this conversation into perspective, the total passengers’ CO2 emissions for a wedding of 50 guests flying from London to Bali, a popular wedding destination, is estimated at 65,672.6kg. Based on averages from the Urban Forestry Network, a US-based NGO, which indicate that one adult tree (over 10 years old) is capable of absorbing 48lbs (21.8kg) of CO2 per year, this means that it would take 3,013 trees to reverse the impact on the environment of a wedding of this kind in a year.

For Nicola Appleton, an editor from Bristol, this has weighed heavily on her mind as she plans her wedding. “We have floated the idea of a destination wedding in the past but I don’t think either of us would want to do that now, knowing what we do,” she says. “I suppose it’s like my veggie friend who didn’t want meat served at her wedding, as she didn’t want animals slaughtered on her behalf. I’m not sure I would want my friends and family to pile onto an easyJet flight in honour of my wedding either.

So what can you as an individual do?

Carbon offsetting has grown in popularity over the past few years as a way of compensating for emission-generating behaviour. A cursory Google search reveals hundreds of companies who offer a service through which consumers can fund projects to reduce carbon emissions, most commonly by planting trees on their behalf. Opinions diverge on how effective this process is, though.

As Gilliam says, “if you think about how many trees are cut down a year, I would bet that a lot of those were planted through carbon offsetting initiatives”, she says. She references a parody video called Cheat Neutral from 10 years ago, which claims to offer people the ability to pay £2.50 to offset their cheating on their partners to fund “monogamy-boosting offset projects”, which certainly makes you consider the morality of offsetting.

“At the end of the day,” she says, “there’s no way to buy yourself out of the damage of that flight if you’re being completely honest with yourself.” The best thing you can do, she says, is to be more mindful about how you travel. “No one is advocating for everyone to stop travelling once and for all; it’s just about being conscientious when planning trips abroad, in the same way you would if you were financially limited.”

Nonetheless, there are companies popping up in the UK that offer to help you think through how your wedding could contribute to climate change, and ways to reduce its impact. Flower companies are popping up, such as Lavender and Rose, based in Glasgow, who use locally sourced flowers rather than those that have travelled for miles, and have made efforts to eliminate floral foam used to make bouquets, which eventually breaks down into microplastics.

Staying closer to home is also a more obvious idea, if possible, as is organising shuttle buses for guests travelling in the same direction. Another idea would be to source vintage or pre-worn outfits for the wedding party, or instead of giving wedding favours, donate to a charity supporting environmental initiatives. And for those invited to multiple hen dos, stag dos or overseas weddings, be selective over which invites you accept.

Nonetheless, it may still not be realistic for some to marry near home, and for those couples eager to plan a destination wedding but who also want to minimise their impact on the environment, there are various steps they can take. “Email invitations or invitations from recycled materials would be one of the quickest and easiest ways to minimise the waste produced,” says Caroline. “Also ensuring things like the food and the flowers have been locally sourced would be kinder to the environment, and it has the added benefit of meaning you can embrace some of the local culture.”

And if all else fails? You could always elope. Pinterest reported a 128 per cent rise in searches for elopement photography ideas, suggesting that more and more couples are choosing to go it alone. Having fewer guests would certainly reduce your carbon footprint.

At the end of the day, it’s about being more thoughtful about your impact on your surroundings and the wider implications of the choices you make. It’s about considering how each and every action that you undertake in your day might contribute to something much bigger. And, although it will take much more than one person changing their wedding plans to effect change at the scale that is needed, it’s important to remember that individual actions stack up into collective change.

Ultimately, the best way to influence the behaviour of big business in a consumerist society is by reducing demand, which begins at the individual level. And, anyway, given that so much of wedding planning is about future-gazing and imagining what our life will look like down the line, shouldn’t the world that we will live in when we’re older also be an important consideration?