The green bride

Emma and Ian ruled out their dream wedding abroad and instead opted fo the Yorkshire Dales (Zagni Photography)

Consultant Emma Harvey, 39, married Ian Newbold, 37, an IT specialist, in July last year

People imagine a "green" wedding to be some kind of New Age affair, but ours proved that you can stick to your principles without sacrificing your plans fora lovely, traditional day.

I work in sustainability, helping businesses "green up", so it's important to practise what I preach.

I knew a lot about what we could do but I went to a specialist green wedding planner, who gave me lots more ideas.

Transport is the biggest issue, so we ruled out our dream wedding abroad. Luckily we have the beautiful Yorkshire Dales on our doorstep; we founda small hotel there and had some teepees put up in the field next to it.

My husband came up with the idea of setting up our "wedding website", where we encouraged guests to communicate about car-pooling. We also saved paper by putting information on thererather than sending it out.

On the day, we used local suppliers for everything from the meat to the beer, and had fair-trade wines and chocolates.

I'm not a white-meringue wedding dress type of girl, so I deliberately chose oneI could wear again at parties.

We tried not to ram the whole green thing down people's throats. We chose things we really liked that were also green or ethical – it didn't feel at all as though it was a compromise.

GreenUnion helped to organize Emma and Ian's wedding. Visit www.greenunion.co.uk