Couples Walk Aisle in Step With Environment : Outdoor eco-weddings--with recycled flowers, rented china and ‘registered’ sporting goods--are becoming more popular.

An eco-wedding? You may not be able to find it listed in the phone book under Wedding Services, Environmentally Correct, but according to wedding consultants in the field, it’s a pretty easy thing to do. And many people are doing it.

What’s involved?

Professionals all seem to agree that such an event would necessarily involve low-meat or no-meat catering. Wearing recycled clothes--especially in cases where brides wear their mother’s wedding dress--was mentioned often, as were bridal showers and wedding gifts of a no-nonsense, down-to-earth sort.

Surprisingly, almost everybody envisioned that an environmentally correct wedding banquet table would be set with china and glassware--which needs to washed, and probably needs to be rented--rather than throwaway plastic, which is cheap but ends up in the landfill.

Shari Schultz, co-owner of New Directions Event Planning, a Simi Valley firm that provides consultations about weddings, asked rhetorically, “What’s proper etiquette?” And then answered it: “It’s what feels right for you,” she said, and then got down to specifics. “Not a whole lot of red meat--most clients are health-conscious.”

Shultz’s partner, Shelley Smilen, said that almost all their clients have a particular kind of wedding in mind when they walk in the door. “Traditional,” she said.

But, according to both Shultz and Smilen, the meaning of that word seems to have changed in the ‘90s. Half the people walking in the door are getting married for the second or third time. Many are more health-conscious than folks used to be, and are food-conscious in another way--they often willingly agree to send leftovers to charitable groups like Care & Share.

Dolores Woods of The Classic Carrot, a vegetarian-oriented catering service headquartered at the Ventura restaurant of the same name, has the same experience with her clients. “I’m really for it,” she said, adding that neither she nor her clients want any disposable items--food or plastic. China, glass and linen rental can be “close” to disposable items in cost, she asserted.

The reduce, reuse, recycle ethic is apparently alive and well in the wedding business, though not called such.

“We never like to walk away and leave anything that might bring smiles to someone somewhere,” Smilen said, further noting that flowers from such events are often taken to hospitals and churches.

The truly environmentally minded extend this environmental ethic to the matter of wedding gifts, according to many wedding consultants locally and nationally.

Instead of “registering” with a department store for china and silver, eco-couples register with a sporting goods or building supplies stores, depending on whether they are into camping or carpentry.

This sends a signal that they don’t want over-packaged, energy wasting, probably breakable little appliances. Some even register with a travel agency, specifically one that specializes in “green” tourism such as honeymoon backpacking into the rain forest.

This interest in preserving natural resources and celebrating nature extends to the ceremony itself: many want it outdoors. Back yard, beach, riverside and mountaintop weddings have been with us since the ‘60s. The practice is alive and well in Ventura County.

“Weddings are our summer crop,” joked Lin Ayres, co-owner of Faulkner Farms, a Santa Paula enterprise that produces Christmas trees and pumpkins at other times of year.

Wheeler Hot Springs is another well regarded non-church site to exchange vows. An amenity offered there that I hadn’t heard about before in outdoor situations is environmentally sensitive citronella candles. No toxic mosquito sprays allowed, according to Larry Kaufer, spokesman for the locale.

For the couple wishing to wed yet farther from a traditional shrine, I’ve been told that certain local vineyards and wineries are available to host nuptials. Maybe the attraction is the availability of hard-to-find organic vintages. There has to be a legitimate environmental angle for such a suggestion, doesn’t there?

Details

* FYI: For advice on wedding festivities for the environmentally-minded, some local numbers to call are: Classic Carrot Catering 643-2711, New Directions Events Planning 581-2602, Faulkner Farms 525-9293. Wheeler Hot Springs, 646-8131.