When you envision your wedding, are you barefoot in the grass? Is it all about Valentine's Day and the language of hearts? Perhaps your altar is a stand of pines, your bouquet a handpicked assortment of wild daisies.

If that sounds like the perfect wedding, you may be a bride on the wild side. But even if your wedding fantasy is a more polished affair, you can still go easy on Mama Earth by incorporating eco-savvy elegance into your celebration.

Greener nuptials are better for the planet, and they're also in vogue, so there are many options for the environmentally conscious bride. These days, you can dress up the big day with something old, something new, something recycled and something that grew. Here are suggestions for a lavish yet low-impact wedding:

Eat, drink and be local
Look to local marketplaces for food to the frill. Even if you have to source businesses in other corners of your state, you're still cutting the carbon costs of shipping from across the nation. A local microbrewery could supply your favorite organic ale. Consider farmers markets for fresh, in-season produce or a local dairy for handcrafted cheese. A great online resource for finding local food producers is localharvest .org.

Earth-friendly flowers
Most flowers sold in the United States are imported from other countries where they're grown using unregulated pesticides and under poor labor conditions. For fresher flowers grown organically in the United States, look to localharvest.org. Organic bouquets are another option (californiaorganicflowers.com).

Rent and reuse
When it comes to such items as furnishings, linens and tableware, consider borrowing or renting from a party supplier rather than buying new stuff you won't need in the long run.

Green garb
Renting is also worth considering when it comes to the dresses and tuxedos, but a quick search on Google will unearth a host of Web sites for buying green garb, including olivialuca.com, getcon scious.com, rawganique.com and threadheadcreations.com.

Inspired invitations
Traditional invitations use up a lot of paper and printing chemicals, so turn to recycled and unbleached note cards, soy and vegetable-based inks and even e-vites, e-mail invitations that skip the stationery altogether. Whichever style of invitation you choose, request that guests RSVP by e-mail to save paper used in response cards and envelopes. You can cut waste further by preparing maps, schedules, registry information, guest books and more on Web sites such as wedshare.com and ewedding.com.

Shared travel
Consider providing carpooling options or shuttle buses to ferry guests from a central location to the wedding site. This will cut down on individual auto emissions and will also help ensure guests' safety if alcohol is served at the event. Many couples now opt to offset the carbon footprint of wedding transportation by purchasing green power from their local energy provider. Learn more at eere.energy.gov.

Do-right registry
Give careful consideration to the gifts you'd like to receive - organic linens, cast-iron cookware - and create registries with retailers where your guests can shop with confidence. Of course, less is more when it comes to sustainability, so you might want to give up the gift idea altogether and create an online donation registry for a worthy cause.

Justgive.org offers a unique wedding registry through which guests can make charitable donations to a couple's favorite cause in lieu of traditional gifts.

You don't have to "green it" alone. Greeneleganceweddings .com, greenweddings.net, vibrantevents.net and the World Wildlife Fund (worldwildlife.org/ weddings) can help you plan a wedding with less waste.

- Mary Jane Butters

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