Throughout my sustainability journey, I have always strived to make conscious and intentional choices when buying items. I have done no-buy months to reduce my carbon footprint and consumerism habits. But that became much more difficult throughout the wedding planning process. The wedding industry is heavily based in consumerism habits, and push that the more items you have before, during, and after your wedding, the better.

I understand the usefulness of having a wedding registry for your guests. While you can always just ask for cash gifts, my fiancé and I thought that having a registry would be best for our family and friends. Several wedding planning sites told me that I should have multiple registries with multiple stores, which I found overwhelming and unnecessary. We decided to go with just one registry on Amazon, and asked for items that aligned with our values of being eco-friendly, sustainable, and plastic-free.

Here are a few of the items we added to our registry:

Silicone Baking Sheets

I love baking veggies every week for meal prep, and I hate how wasteful it is to use sheets of tiny foil each time. If we don’t get these from our registry I am going to be sure to get them myself!

Bamboo Cooking Utensils

Bamboo is one of the most sustainable materials, as bamboo can grow at such a quick rate and regenerates from its own roots. I have found it to be one of the best choices for materials compared to wood, but always be sure to check the sources of bamboo-made materials in order to choose the most sustainable and fair trade option.

Cast Iron Skillets

The most sustainable thing about cast iron skillets is that they last forever, so you really never have to buy new ones.

Glass Straws

I have metal straws and love them, until someone said that they don’t like them because they can’t actually see how well they clean them. After hearing that, I could never un-hear it haha. So these will be a great addition to my expansive collection of reusable straws.

Electronic Gift Cards/Experiences

While many people want a physical gift card so you can feel the gift, I personally don’t feel that way and find it silly to add one more piece of plastic to the landfill just so you can physically touch it. Plus, it is so much easier to redeem a gift card online! To reduce the waste we generate, and to give people the opportunity to gift us gifts that will give us many more amazing memories, I think this is a great option.