How We Made Our Zero Waste Wedding!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- When Leah and I decided that we wanted to make our wedding as close to zero waste as we could we knew it was going to be a bit of a journey. Looking back on the whole process we wouldn't have done it any other way. Not only was it fun trying to find creative ways around the waste but I think it actually helped us make the party that much more unique.
Here's a list of the people we got stuff from in no particular order!
The Pies! / 204007886288887
The Salsa! www.facebook.c...
The Chips! www.adrianasthe...
Zero Waste Grocery Store! www.zerowastee...
The Beer! phillipsbeer.com/
Topsoil Urban Agriculture! www.topsoileat...
Topsoil video! • How Urban Farms Are Ch...
My social media:
/ levi_hildebrand
/ levi_hildebrand
/ levinotjeanshildebrand
Music From Artlist! artlist.io/art...
Toss some thumbs to Leah for putting this whole thing together! I was just a supporting role in the orchestration of this whole thing and she did an incredible job! Let us know if you have any other questions!
She is absolutely amazing!! ❤❤❤
Can you do a vid on imperfectproduce.com
A friend of mine collected interesting wine glasses for months from thrift stores around town. Everyone at the wedding got their own unique glass and could take it home at the end of the night as a kind of souvenir =)
GRRiTSELeNA that is such an amazing idea
oh that’s brilliant
I love the idea of a zero waste wedding! Congratulations guys!
Thank you!
Eco friendly confetti that I have seen used is bird seed. Rice and some other plastic alternatives are harmful to the birds and other living things. You did an amazing job putting together your wedding and I enjoyed your video.
Rice is bad for birds so you probably shouldn't use rice
@@nicki9408 thats what Kim said :)
Oh your right lol i must have misread that
flower seeds would also be an idea. seeds generally seem great
Imagine a fall wedding... red and yellow leaf confetti anyone ?!?!
That’s a very good point. 😍😍😍
I wonder if you could cause some leaves to turn fall colors with some kind of freezer or fridge method?
@@itsalladream5559 I’m not quite sure on the science but I’m not thinking that would work. Maybe if you have the wedding later in the year you could collect and save them?
I have a friend who got married a few years ago and at the wedding party they made tables out of stacked pallets for the food. They also asked all their friends to save up Nutella and jam jars to give to them and they used them to serve drinks in with papers straws. They cleaned all the jars up added some yarn and cute paper tags. They also used glass bottles to put their flowers in. The whole wedding was so beautiful and they could put most things in the recycling after.
Yes! This is really awesome! So cool to hear all these recycled solutions. Thanks for sharing!
That “Leah’s” shirt is so good hahahah
At my cousin's wedding,, all the drinks were in glass mason jars that you could take home after! it was super cool because some of them had handles on them so I was sure to grab one of them because I knew I would use it as a coffee mug later. :D
When I got married, we used a lot of second hand, thrift store items that we later had as decor in our home. A friend gave me her old wedding dress and I upcycled it to fit my style. I didn't do as well as you guys with the zero waste, but my intention was to do everything second hand or handmade.
Although our wedding didn't generate that much waste as it was not traditional big party I wish I could turn back time and do it with more open eyes like you did. Congratulation to both of you for your wedding and thank you for sharing you moment with us to learn.
On a side note I think I would of opt for rampaging the local thrift store for the dishes and then resell it on Craigslist for someone else wedding/party.
Awesome idea for the flowers! I dislike the whole flower industry (it's so much footprind and so much waste (lots of plastic too)).
Thanks for this comment! Those big parties are cool for the memories for sure but a small intimate wedding is very special too. Thanks for the comment!
ah I cried during the first 2 minutes haha your wife's speech was beautiful xx
In my Mexican Home town, those 4 liter buckets of salsa would have barely feed 20 people
Haha I'm gonna have to visit there. :P
Same for us in Chile with pebre 😁
I love how everyone just came in rompers/casual clothes
I going to speak for my friend Neil and remind you that he was wearing a “rompHIM” 😂
@@LeahandLevi and it was amazing! 😂🌸
I really love the no-plastic, zero-waste approach. Thank you for bringing awareness and inspiration.
If it fits into you're time and interest may I suggest to look into aluminium foil, too? When it comes to covering / storing food bees wax cloths do the job as well.
Yeah we have a whole bunch of them! Unfortunately they’re not big enough to cover the dishes we were using most of the time which was a bummer. But we were actually pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of the people we asked to bring salads brought them in beeswax!
I really love that you went through the effort to do a low waste wedding. I can't help but see how some of the waste (plastic from ice, water from washing cups, etc.) wasn't avoided necessarily but passed off to someone/where else. We need most people doing "zero waste" imperfectly, not everyone doing it perfectly, to make an impact though. Using this video as inspo for my future wedding!
I was totally thinking the same about the cups, but their ice came plastic free directly out of the ice maker, which is pretty cool :)
If anyone is looking to do this in the future, Textured vegetable protein from bulk barn is an excellent no waste meat replacement. Would have had 0 plastic if you use a reusable container. Plus reusable fabric bowl covers would have been better for the food than the foil.
Also I love those wicker baskets. I love the idea of the being your own cup!
that's really great made me think that our ancestors had nice weddings and did not create a huge amount of plastic hence it was possible we just have to recreate it !
Victoria Kunetsky now I want to give my ring to my sons future wife
I really admire you leading by example! That is rarely something i come across. For those who want to avoid waste completely, i recommend getting married at the town hall. Does not have to be locally. It can even be in another country.
Congratulations!
Thank for this comment! Yes avoiding the big thing will definitely reduce your waste lol
What a beautiful celebration! The amount of effort and care that went into this event is so inspiring. So many of these ideas could easily be applied to most any event or even small get togethers, which I'll definitely have to keep in mind for the future!
I was recently struggling with the Costco vs no plastic packaging situation myself. Ultimately, my boyfriend and I decided that we would much rather pay a bit extra to avoid single use plastics, whether that means buying loose produce at the local grocery store or using reusable containers to get dry goods at Bulk Barn. In the end, it is by far worth it.
That's the kind of wedding I wish to photograph one-day: an awesome celebration of love with a caring eye for the environment. Congrats guys, you are great!
omg such a cute and unique wedding congrats on getting married
Thanks for saying that! We were super happy about it. :)
Really enjoyed this video. It was lovely to see that you were able to have a zero waste wedding on a budget and for so many people. I have always dreamt of having a similar kind of wedding, never really thought of the zero waste aspect but more along the lines of reusing stuff to save money but you have given me lots of ways to be zero waste as well. When my best friend got married in New Brunswick. She booked a local restaurant whose chef was big on using only locally sourced produce. I remember rsvping and choosing fish but not knowing which fish I would be getting but it turned out great and I had a side of fiddleheads as they were in season. Her mother in law made the cake and the flowers were potted herbs from her garden. Your wedding seems so meaningful too. Leah I loved your dress, totally my style and that flower grown. My favourite part were the wild flowers you had on your table. 😊
Thanks for this comment! Yeah a lot of these pieces made it feel unique while also helping the planet. Stoked that you’re on the team. 🙏🏼
So inspiring to find someone do zero waste from Canada! I have to admit that people from Europe think that Americans and Canadian people are not into zero waste at all, but I know that is so wrong, there are so many channels here on TH-cam doing zero waste! Love it!
Oh and in Germany it is normal that you hire all the glasses, big metal cans and metal boxes the company brings with food and drinks in it! We have to clean it before we return it though like you did with the salsa boxes.
That’s so cool to hear! Thanks for sharing this and being a part of the team!
this video was awesome and interesting to watch! thanks for all the work. Three years ago we had /what I consider/ a low waste wedding: mason jars for drinks, plates made from palm leafs, wooden cutlery, vintage decorations from my mom-in-law, local pies instead of a cake and no material gifts but money. We had the ceremony in a national park and because decorations were not allowed there, the scenery was the best decoration. We were not shooting for a zero waste wedding, but we were trying to be as low waste as possible. It turned out to be a very cute rustic wedding :)
The more I am finding what you guys are all about, the more I find you both just amazing. Just two young people madly in love...congratulations Levi and Leah! You both have a special unique quality for sure, just amazing!!!❤❤❤
This is such an eye opening video, never realized about how wasteful wedding could be. Thank you
such genuine people, congratulations
When you return food at Costco it goes straight in the trash. So both the food and the packaging was thrown out when you returned it.
The manager we talked to said that the cheese we were hoping to return would have been trashed but the packaged vegetables we're fine... according to him.
Unfortunately he lied. All perishables returned at Costco must be thrown out.
Exactly. And you're wasting gas (and byproducts of that, wasting money and polluting the environment more) by driving to tons of places.
At least they tried though right?
Nicole Sieber that’s what people don’t understand!! Just because you’re naïve enough to think that you’re not making trash just because you can’t see it, is silly
Such a beautiful wedding! The confetti idea is amazing and looks even better than I thought it would. Also LOVE the whole pie speech that guy was putting on haha
That's Ben! He's kind of an Uncle to me and you can't really stop him from making speeches so... haha glad you enjoyed it.
Congratualations Levi and Leah!
I just got married yesterday and we also tried to have a zero waste wedding. It seems like we had a very similar set of goals. We had the wedding at my parents' house, we either borrowed or bought secondhand all of our decor and supplies. I was most stoked about our bouquets of flowers because we got them from a local organic farmer who also grows flowers for the bees. Honestly we did end up making about one grocery store bag worth of garbage (for 110 guests). We did actually go with a caterer, because we found one that was super zero-waste friendly and does mostly local organic food and had great vegetarian options. When we were planning we were also making all of our choices based on the lowest impact option.
Honestly, was it way harder to do a zero waste wedding? YES. But it was so totally worth it because we felt comfortable with our decisions, didn't have to stress about the harm we were doing and got to enjoy our wedding day even more.
The cherry on top was that I found a used wedding dress and we bought vintage rings. :)
WOWOWOWOWOWOW!!! That's so awesome! This is so cool to hear about Laura! I particularly love that you found ways to make it fun for yourself (it sounds like anyways lol) because otherwise it's just a chore. Thanks so much for sharing your process and I really hope that it helps others do the same!
I so happy for you guys and that you were able to make a sustainable wedding!! 🤗🤗🤗
Well I mean there's always ways we could do better but it was a pretty fun experiment and it worked out too!
Thank you for showing us that it is possible to host such a big event while still being close to zero waste. I also wanted to thank you both for showing us all the hard work and extra time that was required to pull it off.
You guys are amazing for doing all the extra work to help the environment. Also congratulations ❤️
You are the cutest couple ever! Thank you for sharing with us this big moment of your lives
heros are always so blissfully unaware of how heroic they truly are
Doesn't he talk about being a hero?
@@corvividart4745 yeah he says he isnt one or some bs lol
You guys are really AMAZING HUMANS!
This video gained you two a new follower...I love that you two are sharing your ZeroWaste life with the world!
I'm not there yet by far but thanks for giving me ideas
I love this I love this I love this.
That green confetti (double entendre) is so sweet. It all makes me so happy!
Love this. Being frugally minded my wedding ending up being pretty low waste also (3-4 medium sized garbage bags). I made all the food (taco bar) and everything that wasn’t eaten was divided up between us and our parents to have the leftovers. The flowers were given to us by my moms neighbor who grew a bunch of flowers that summer and she made us a few small bouquets out of them which we turned into decorations after the ceremony was over. We did have disposable plastic plates but instead of throwing them away after we collected them and washed them after to reuse for future events in our family.
A really beautiful wedding! I don‘t know, if this only exits in Germany, professional catering here always uses bigger pans, with a lid and a little heater, so there is even less waste, cause u don‘t need aluminium foil.
This really meant that people respect, value and love you! What a wonderful celebration of your love! Congrats, I know I’m late but I wish you happiness.❤️ to you both from Milwaukee, WI, USA.
Congrats you two! Weddings are beautiful when they really reflect the couple and their ideals 💖💖
Aww this is so cool, CONGRATULATIONS GUYS (You both look amazing together). Also wanted to say thank you for sharing such an intimate & important event of your life. The video also shows how you guys are the perfect example of NOT being hypocrites- Most people can only tell others what's right & what's wrong but rarely apply it to themselves but you guys made such an effort to make your wedding a zero waste affair. That's why both of you are amazing & you really inspire us (To do what's right for the environment & our planet along with showing us that you can get all the things done- Only with just a bit of more work than usual, but you'll atleast feel good at the end of the day). Love you guys 😘
Thanks for this incredible message! I’m glad that you are inspired by our lifestyle and hopefully it helps you on your own journey. See you around!
So inspirational. Meanwhile I am too nervous to ask for food in my own container or not using the produce bags...
Hahaha just gotta get a little silly about it! People usually don’t get too weird about it. 😜
It's seriously nothing to feel shy about, even my local taco lady is so used to it she finds it wierd when I forget my container (happens when I'm coming back from a long trip)
I am so so proud of awesome people like you. Thank you guys for showing the world that it is possible to save the world.❤️❤️❤️❤️ AND for sharing your sweet wedding story, you guys rock!
Thanks Kathryn! So touched that you liked the video and thanks for being a part of the team 🙋🏻♂️🙏🏼
This is so refreshing and inspiring! And it definitely shows us true happiness is not about material possessions. Congratulations. And keep the great work coming! Thank you.
I adore the dress and the whole concept of the wedding. This inspires me to do a wedding in the near future all while being eco-friendly.
Also congratulations 🎉
Watching this six months later, I just noticed @11:42 Levi's "Levi's" shirt is customized to say "Leah's". You guys are so amazing and inspiring. Keep up the great work.
Amazing! Congratulations you guys! ❤️
Congratulations, you two!! This was absolutely adorable and gives me hope! P.S the Leah’s shirt is brilliant ☺️
Haha thank you!
the dedication seen here is just remarkable... just remarkable.
What a beautiful wedding. All the very best to you, may you be healthy, happy and respectful with each other until you're grey and old! 😍🎈🌻🌹
Haha stoked for those old and grey days lol
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!
Keep up the amazing work and save the planet
Thanks friend!
When I first look at the video, one of the scenes showed them taking the plates out of plastic bags. It's crazy that we're always quick to judge, but I'm glad I stayed to see what they would do with the plastics and what the explanation was. You guys are doing good for the future. Our future. Thank you.
Congratulations on getting married and hosting such a lovely low waste event...it is incredibly inspiring!! Lots of love to you two
Thanks for all your support!
Thank you for sharing, looks like such a wonderful and genuine wedding! I will be using lots of these tips for our wedding!
You guys are awesome...love ya...many happy yrs to come. Congrats...u rock.
Way to go Leah and Levi! Great to see your lovely faces! I'm so glad you made a video of what you did!
Thanks you two!
Awesome ideas.
Just got engaged last week & have looking for a video like this to help plan my own low-waste wedding &this video could not of come at a more perfect time! Thank you for your videos & congrats lovebirds!!!
Happy married life to the you the awesome zero waste and environmentally conscious couple.
All the feels at the beginning. Great video dude!
Congratulations, you two! This video was a joy to watch and, as a fellow Victoria dweller, I got embarrassingly excited to see Zero Waste Emporium featured; it and West Coast Refill are two of my main stops to help me reduce my waste.
This was so sweet and amazing to see ❤️
What a lovely wedding! Congratulations ❤️
Thank you!
I love the leaf confetti. In the Czech Republic is a tradition of tossing a bit of rice for the future prosperity of the couple.
I think they used to do that here but rice is bad for birds?
WOW this is super impressive. I am in awe of your determination and hard work in trying to be zero waste for your wedding. Great job!
Thanks for this! We had a ton of fun!
It's an amazing idea. More power to u guys.
U wouldn't believe the kind of waste I have seen generate at the weddings I attended.
Thank you so much for sharing these tips! I initially saw the idea to use leaves as confetti and didn’t realise there were so many other ways to have a zero waste wedding! Also i’m single and probably not getting married anytime soon but it never hurts to start thinking about wedding ideas!
Haha Meredith you can always be wedding planning lol. I’m so happy that this video was helpful for you!
You guys are amazing! Such an inspiration. Love from Hong Kong
😍😍😍 I love that you did this!
My brother got married this month, and he ordered 100 tiny bottles of bubbles for guests to blow... which were made of plastic... and each bubble bottle was individually shrink-wrapped... and packaged in a clear plastic box... delivered with styrofoam. 😩
Ooouuuuch that hurts my soul a little bit. But hey planning a wedding is crazy and I don't blame people for making it as easy as possible. But with a little bit of thought it can be done!
Levi Hildebrand They were so bummed! They’re going out of their way to invest in an electric car to reduce their carbon footprint this year, but it turned out that delegating the task of bubbles to a friend took a very plastic-heavy turn. 😅 One step at a time.
Congrats on the weding! Its amazing that you found out a way to make it eco-friendly😁👏
That was awesome to watch
Superstore would probably have been a better bet price-wise for produce. I don't know if you guys have H&W over there or if that is just an Edmonton/Alberta thing but they are a fantastic place to get produce for cheap cheap and no Packaging
That’s great to know! And valuable info for anyone in that area because as far as I know we don’t have that chain here. Thanks for the comment!
@@LeahandLevi hopefully they expand. They're an awesome produce store and about 25% cheaper than most grocery stores. They offer produce boxes instead of bags and source locally when possible 👍
@@b2h316 Thanks for this! Hopefully this is helpful for folks reading this!
Congrats on getting married!
Hahaha woah well then. There’s a few things well have to get working on there but we appreciate your support.
You two are absolutely adorable and inspirational 😍🌸🌼
there are also catering services that will bring plates and stuff
THANKS FOR SHARING
I want to eat flowers on my wedding cake!
Y'all are lovely
Wow, this is so awesome!! I think more youtubers have no excuse but to do this, and lead by example. If and when I get married, I'll definitely be doing something along these lines.
Omg, this is so awesome! Loved seeing how you guys did your zero-waste wedding. Very nice explanations and walkthrough of it all. I also liked that you showed how much waste was accumulated at the end too. That was a good visual comparison. This video will definitely spark ideas for others wanting a zero-waste wedding. Thanks for sharing and congrats!
So glad that this was helpful for you! There was a lot of work involved but after it was all said and done we had a great time. 🙌🏼
CONGRATULATIONS you guys!! What an amazing wedding and thank you for leading by example and helping others see that it can be done!
FYI for when you renew your vows ;P ... you can get taco stuffer (veggie ground round) made by the Very Good Butcher package-free through our store. As for veggies, you can get them at a better price from the Wholesale Club in Esquimalt or you can ask your friendly grocer to get you a box of limes!
You guys are truly inspirational and a beautiful couple. Wishing you a lifetime of happiness!
And of course, thanks for the mention. We felt privileged that we were able to be a part of it in a little way :D
Yes! That would be a great next step! Thanks for all your help you guys!
Who is that sexy man at 16:05? 😍😜🥰
I can't believe I didn't watch this sooner, I didn't get notified but omgosh what a great video! So much information and great tips, and even though I was there there was so much I missed! I didn't realize the food was all homemade, I knew a lot of it was, but figured some of it was still catered, wow! And it was suuuuuch good food, high five for that! The limes part made me laugh :) The beginning of the video (and the clip of Johnny's toast) made me cry again, thanks for that! It was so much fun reliving so many of these memories and trying to find us in the clips. I saw my car! So dirty, definitely not a city car hahahaha then I caught myself covering the kegs in ice! That made me laugh, I do not remember a camera being around for all the little things! I loved the clip of you guys dancing, and them saw us dancing in the background! So many smiles, if you guys ever make a personal video for yourself/friends and family, I would love to watch it with y'all next time you're up 😊💜
I loved the confetti, and I agree about people who bring their own cups are more likely to finish their drinks because they don't put it down or lose it :)
Best wedding ever, I want to follow so many of your tips, plus the comment tips for my own future parties and special events 😄
Thanks for another awesome video, learning experience, memories to last a lifetime, and just all the smiles and laughs 💛
Congrats Levi and Leah! Just want to say I really love your channel. Keep it up!
This is absolute couple goals
Gotta love that shirt, Leah ! 😄😄😄 it did not get past me
Congratulations!! This was lovely and genuine!!! Well done for putting all the work in to make your wedding more environmentally friendly!
Thank you for stopping by and your support!
So nice to see this after a long day! Bring hopes and smiles to me immediately! Congrats!
Thanks for this!
This is SOO helpful! Thanks for sharing y'all!
I'm planning my wedding in September. It was great to get comfirmation on some ideas I have been putting in place for our wedding. I'm totally stealing the confetti leaves (or maybe the bird seed I saw in a comment). I am pleased to have a connection with @Kleankanteen and plan to do branded wedding pints for our guests. They can take them home after and use them for a lifetime. Thanks for sharing this special day with all of us. Freaking lovely!
Awesome wedding and congrats but FYI, Costco policy with food is, if you purchase the food and then return it. They most toss it in the trash. You saved plastic but the food got tossed. Double check in your area but in the U.S., it’s written in stone. Lol cheers to you both and keep up the great work.
Yeah we actually tried to return some cheese too but apparently they would have tossed it out so we didn’t. The vegetables he said were fine though.🤷🏻♂️ great point though. No point in avoiding plastic waste if you’re creating food waste.
Absolutely inspiring. Thank you for sharing and showing that it's totally possible. Congratulations to you!
Loved it!! Congrats!!✌️😉
Aww this is probably the cutest thing I have ever seen
congrats guys 🎈🍾🎉🎊
I love the idea, the only thing im sad about and I am not sure if you're aware, but when you return produce like that at costco, they cannot put it back on their shelves to sell due to health safety and risk reasons. In the end, your returns with the plastic sadly went into the dumpster. Something to keep in mind when returning produce.
The manager we talked to said that the cheese we were hoping to return would have been trashed (we didn't in the end) but the packaged vegetables we're fine... according to him.
HUGE respect to You guys! And wish You the very best in your expanding love! Cheers!!
Thanks for your support!
You guys are great
Amazing! Congrats! In Mexico, people always spend a lot of money in their weddings. So as a designer i have the idea (when it's time) to have a nice and beautiful wedding but "design a wedding easy to recycle" and recycle as much as possible of the items in the wedding to use in my future home, the wood of the tables i could build, lights, the flowers, plants and the decoration somehow, it will not be easy, but i like challenges. Will see and i'm still thinking that the hardest part will be find the girl hahahah.
Haha that’s awesome! Reuse was a big part of our day and making those little changes make a big difference! Thanks for the comment!
My wedding is likely going to be sometime next year and I have been gathering ideas on both lowering costs (because I don’t believe a wedding needs to be as expensive as most), and reducing waste. Thank you for your story