All you need is love

There is so much love surrounding a wedding, it’s no wonder that many couples, recognizing just how blessed they are, look for ways to give back.

Generosity is contagious, and incorporating charity into your special day has never been easier.

In lieu of gifts

Wedding gifts are wonderful, but some couples already have everything they need to start their lives together — either because they’re marrying later in life or they lived together before tying the knot.

A lucky few are financially blessed and just want to spread the love. When Dana Reston and Robert Lyons of Beverly Hills married in May 2010, they tucked a small card into their wedding invitation that read: “Your presence is our present; but if you feel compelled, a donation to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles would be truly meaningful to us.”

“We felt really good about giving our wedding-gift money to a charity we care about,” Reston said.

They’re not alone. According to Wanda Wen, creator of A Soolip Wedding and founder of Soolip Paperie & Press in West Hollywood, couples are increasingly choosing wedding gifts that benefit causes they’re passionate about.

“Maybe it’s a backlash from the free-wheelin’ ’80s and ’90s that left us feeling empty,” Wen said. “We are instinctively feeling the pull to conduct our lives from a place of gratitude and grace.”

Registering for donations instead of kitchen goods is a growing trend, said Harmony Walton, owner of the Bridal Bar, a wedding resource library in West Hollywood.

“It’s really becoming a breeze to make a difference to others through your wedding,” she said. The Rescue Train, which rescues animals, is one of her favorites.

There are myriad charitable options for any cause a couple cares deeply about, said Elsa Schelin, director of public relations for the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena.

“Absolutely everything you can imagine,” she said, “from animal rescue shelters to breast cancer research.”

Charitable favors

It’s easy to forgo wedding gifts if you happen to be the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — whose request for donations in lieu of gifts helped the trend — but most newlyweds need gifts to begin their lives together. Luckily, there are other ways, such as with wedding favors, to give back.

“Whether it’s a nonprofit to support research for a disease that took a loved one’s life or giving back to the shelter where the couple got their four-legged friends, the wedding favor has become a way of sharing with others and sharing in a story,” Walton said.

Shelter dogs sponsored by the Much Love Foundation were the recipients of funds that would have been spent on favors at the 2008 wedding of Emi and Shingo Kawakami at the Langham Huntington.

Visual elements made the gesture even more meaningful, Schelin said. “Each table displayed a photo of a different dog that had actually been rescued as a result of the donation,” she said.

Giving back through favors not only benefits worthy causes, you might be doing your wedding guests a favor, said Daryl Griffith, director of catering for The Lodge at Pebble Beach.

“They won’t have to worry about lugging around a bottle of olive oil all night,” she said.

If you must give your guests something, consider favors such as Truffles for a Cause, elegant boxes of chocolate truffles with a percentage of their cost donated to the charity of your choice.

Fashionable giving

Debbie Kim and Robert Koo of Rancho Santa Margarita gave their wedding guests lollipop favors with notes indicating they had donated in their names to World Vision, which supports impoverished children. But Kim discovered that what she wore on her feet also could make a difference.

“I chose a pair of Toms wedges,” she said. “Every time you purchase a pair of Toms Shoes, they give a pair to a child in need.”

There are other ways to give back through your nuptials. “I’ve seen eco-conscious couples purchase offsets to the carbon footprint their wedding was leaving,” said Linda Ly, owner of Grand Soirées Event Design in Irvine.

The websites of Terra Pass and Carbon Fund “have simple calculators a couple can use to calculate the footprint of their wedding and wedding-related travel,” Ly said.

Any charitable gesture on your wedding day can create good karma.

You have each other, after all. What more do you really need?

– Jennifer Evans Gardner, Custom Publishing Writer