Mike Hord and Beth Kelm of Minneapolis walk everywhere they can and use compact fluorescent bulbs. To reduce their carbon footprint, they're moving to a smaller apartment. They're also planning a green wedding for Oct. 18.

"If it's in every other aspect of our lives, why should we do anything different when we get married?" said Hord, 29, an electrical engineer.

The environmentally conscious trend began extending to weddings in a big way about two or three years ago, said Geri Wolf, an event coordinator at Minneapolis' Style Laboratory. Now, many couples are incorporating the mindfulness of their daily routines into their special days.

Over the past two years, the number of green weddings in the Twin Cities area has risen by perhaps 40 percent, estimated Mary O'Regan, editor in chief of Minnesota Bride magazine: "People are thinking about how they can be green not just in what kind of car they drive or what they eat, but everything. Weddings are just another factor in that."

Hord and Kelm, 31, an interior designer, are infusing green elements into almost every detail of their wedding. They've selected a Dinkytown-based caterer, Chowgirls, that uses locally grown food and serves dishes such as beet-and-chevre ravioli, a vegetarian antipasto platter, butternut-bisque shots, organic-chicken skewers and salmon from a Wisconsin fishery.

Food is the most popular part of a wedding in which to go green, Wolf said: "People are very cognizant about going with a caterer who works with organic ingredients."

Another way to have a green wedding is to locate all related events as close together as possible to cut down on driving. Hord and Kelm are getting married in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and the reception will be right across the street. Hord will also book a nearby hotel and encourage guests to take a bus or walk to and from the sites.

Planning an ecologically minded honeymoon can be the most difficult quest of all.

"If you want to go anywhere on a honeymoon, you're probably going to fly, and flying is one of the worst things you can do, ecologically speaking," Hord said. Instead, the couple will take a train to Chicago because rail travel is less polluting than going by air. If they had decided to take a plane, Hord said, they would have made a donation to the company TerraPass that balanced the carbon emissions from their ride.

Hord and Kelm are signed up with the I Do Foundation's charitable gift registry website, with donations going to the Sierra Club. Through the website, they are also asking for standard wedding gifts such as dishes, towels and bed linens from Target and Gaiam (www.gaiam.com), which specializes in organic and sustainable items.

They're requesting organic or recycled items, not "a huge set of china that's going to sit in a box and not get used for 99.9 percent of our lives," Hord said. "Whenever you register for a wedding gift, you have to consider the concept of cradle to grave. Ask yourself: 'How much do I really need?' Buying less stuff is one of the easier ways to green up our lives."

Being mindful of waste is another big trend in green weddings.

"People tend to be very cognizant of what happens to the flowers after the wedding," Wolf said. "They would go so far as to make sure those flowers are going home with someone or are being donated to a children's hospital or living facility."

Hord said they are buying locally grown in-season plants, and the foliage will be composted rather than thrown away after the wedding.

Green at heart, low on cash

Not all green weddings are like Hord and Kelm's. Aaron Reiners said living green is something he and his fiancée, Annie Olson, both 26, are interested in and trying to pursue. Their plans are different, because they are planning a green wedding that focuses more on nature and supporting local commerce.

The St. Paul couple are having the ceremony outside surrounded by 300-year-old oak trees in West St. Paul's Thompson Park. "We definitely feel a strong connection to nature," Reiners said. "We wanted to have the environment and nature play more of a role as a backdrop."

Reiners also supported the green philosophy and local commerce when he designed an engagement ring for Olson, a substitute teacher. Reiners bought a conflict-free sustainably mined stone from a jeweler in Illinois who works with recycled gold. Then he had the stone set in a one-of-a-kind setting by James Hunt Designs in Stillwater.

Reiners, an artist at St. Paul's Wet Paint art-supply store, said planning just how green your wedding will be comes down to choosing between cost and ecologically minded decisions. For example, they would have liked to hire Minneapolis' Birchwood Café to cater, but price and the fact that the Birchwood doesn't have a liquor license to sell at a catering venue stopped them.

"It's a delicate balancing act between what you'd like to do and what you can afford to do," he said.

Green weddings may cost up to 20 percent more than the average wedding price of $27,000, said Alex Lluch of WS Publishing Group, which produces wedding-planning books. Also, some green businesses aren't budgeted or set up for weddings.

As Reiners and Olson continue to plan for their Oct. 18 wedding, they will be considering affordability while supporting green causes and local commerce as much as possible, Reiners said.

Industry awareness

Some people planning green weddings are interested in making sustainable decisions, but don't know where to start. As a result, Wolf said, the whole event industry is becoming more aware of making environmentally friendly decisions. Discussions on how to go green are popular on trade websites including livinggreen.org and seminars such as the Living Green Expo held at the State Fairgrounds this month and the Green Event Summit taking place in San Francisco in June.

Even if people are not making ecology the most important aspect of their weddings, many are adding touches of green, such as planning ahead to cut waste, Wolf said.

In all their varying shades, green weddings likely are here to stay.

"Ultimately it's about making sure my children's children will have the quality of life we have," Hord said.

Hilary Dickinson is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.