Today is Blog Action Day, and the subject is poverty. So we’re going to talk a little bit today about how our weddings and our blog community can help those less fortunate or contribute to changing our world for the better, in any small way that we can.
I fully realize that this post won’t even begin to address the massive world issue of poverty and that weddings and poverty are an incongruent combination. Rather, I hope that Blog Action Day and all of the posts that are being written provide us all with the impetus to research poverty and determine how we can make a difference and make a change in our daily lives, no matter how small that change seems in light of the mountain we need to climb.
Some ideas:
- Donate unused food or cake from your wedding to local shelters or soup kitchens.
- After your wedding, take your centerpieces/floral arrangements to hospitals or convelescent homes – it will help to brighten someone’s day!
- Donate your gown and bridesmaids dresses to an organization such as Brides Against Breast Cancer or the Glass Slipper Project or resell on sites such as Once Wed so that each and every bride can have the dress of her dreams.
- Instead of spending money on favors, donate to your favorite charity.
- Sell or gift as many wedding items as you can to other brides – it will save on consumption and help everyone’s budget! Yay for Bridesharing!
- Repurpose vintage/used items or family heirlooms in your wedding.
- Participate in Pay It Forward.
- Donate your time and talent to help another bride with a project. I’ve seen so many examples of this in the blog community and it’s so wonderful that we have bloggers, vendors, readers, and brides willing to help each other along the way!
- Work with vendors who volunteer their time and talents to help those in need – there are a lot of wedding elves out there, you don’t have to look far!
- Go on a honeymoon to a locale that needs tourism dollars, near (New Orleans) or far (Ghana, Nicaragua) – you’ll get more bang for your buck, help the local economy, and also see a place in the world you may never have had the opportunity to visit.
We all want to have (or in the case of the vendors reading this, help people have!) the wedding of our dreams, no matter how big, small, formal, or casual that wedding may be. And the same people who have the desire to have the wedding of their dreams are also caring and contributing members of the world – it’s not mutually exclusive. I’ve never seen a group of people who are more tolerant, helpful, creative, and good-hearted than this community! So in light of that …
What are you doing to help?
E.