Kyle and I were married on October 15, 2010. When we began planning our wedding we felt discouraged as we were having a hard time spending such a large amount of money on one day for ourselves. We believe in giving back and living a life of purpose. Neither one of us enjoys being the center of attention and while we knew we wanted a wedding to celebrate our love for each other with our closest friends and family, we knew there had to be a better way. We created The Charity Wedding as a means to raise both money and awareness for several charities during the planning process and with the wedding itself. We asked vendors if they would be willing to donate or discount time or services. We set a $10,000 budget and committed to donate what we didn’t spend on vendors to local charities. Each month we organized a different fund raising or charitable effort to help bring exposure to as many groups as possible. The charity theme gave our wedding a greater purpose and instead of feeling discouraged, we began to feel motivated by the thought of helping others. Our goal was not only to raise money and awareness for charity but also to help other couples to think about their weddings a little differently and try to find ways to give back through their love for each other. It was an honor and blessing to be able to impact the lives of other people through our Wedding. We find joy in knowing that even after the day is over, people are benefiting from the process.
This would not have been possible if it were not for the amazing support of our generous vendors. We give them full credit for turning this unconventional wedding idea into a reality. They are undeniably some of the best in the business and they handled every last detail with professionalism and class all the while never asking what was in it for them. We are eternally grateful to them for giving us our dream wedding.
To read about the impact our big day made on others go HERE.
To hear more watch our pre-wedding video from Get Wed in the Red: HERE or Our Wedding Day video HERE or the post-wedding video HERE.
For ideas on how to incorporate charity into your wedding, go here!
Thank you for visiting. Feel free to send us an email with any questions or concerns, we’d love to hear from you! TheCharityWedding {at} yahoo {dot} com.
What a meaninguful way to celebrate! Have you considered a Charity Gift Registry for your wedding? You get a custom page and choose the charities you’d like to list so guests can donate in lieu of a regular gift.
More about how it works here or feel free to contact me http://www.charitygiftcertificates.org/GiftRegistry/WeddingRegistry.aspx
@charitychoice
This sounds great! Thank you for suggesting it. I will definitely look into it.
Great to see the initiative you’ve taken! Check out IDoFoundation.org for other ideas on how to incorporate charity into your wedding shopping, registries, favors, and more.
Hey Grant! I have actually looked at the website before briefly and I think its awesome. I like the favor idea. I plan to spend some more time on the site searching for options. Thanks for visiting!
We photographed a wedding recently where each guest was given a bottle of ONEHOPE Wine to take home with them. Makes a great gift for guests and best of all – 50% of profits are donated to charities. Their website is http://www.onehopewine.com – highly recommended!
Oh Great Idea! Wine and Charity, sounds like a good combo to me! Thank you for the info!
Fantastic! This is so exciting to see a couple taking the initiative to make a difference in the community and not spend all their wedding budget on themselves, rather to help improve the community by giving back. I have been volunteering for 20 years and completed a full year of AmeriCorps volunteer service. I can truly say, “what I learned through volunteering is not anything I could learn by text book, in church or my father’s words.” After going through my own battles…and who doesn’t go through battles,right? I decided to take all of what life has blessed me with and put it into meaningful action/purpose…when we (my husband and I) opened up my business StarStruck! Event Planning, LLC (located in Prescott) I decided I wanted to continue improving lives around me, and knew business was going to keep my hands full, so how would I still do this? Well besides volunteering for events for organizations such as Yavapai Humane Society or Make-A-Wish Foundation, our business actually donates funds to Make-A-Wish Foundation of Arizona! My passion for helping others has never grown old, rather my passion remains fresh! I thank you so much for your contribution and you are making a difference : )
Thank you for all your kind words and for all the amazing work you do to give back! Thank you for taking the time to visit our blog! Isn’t it fun to give back?!
I love it! You guys are awesome! I’m coming in kinda late in the game, so I’ve got quite a few blogs to catch up on. I LOVE charity! What an amazingly great idea!
What a wonderful way to celebrate such a special event in your lifes and at the same time making an impact on others. Something else for any future brides looking for a gift that gives back is the foundation Bracelet from Stella & Dot. Throught the sale of them they support 3 great charities; ACCION USA; buildOn and Girls Incorporated.
I see that you are only a few weeks away from your day,have an amazing day.
Thank you Fiona!
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Wow what an admirable cause, Alicia. Great thoughts to ponder! Wishing you much success for your endeavor – it’s just fabulous.
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I just learned of you through Scarlet Threads, who is one of my suppliers. I was totally intrigued by your name and had to come check you out! This is awesome and I can’t wait to learn more!
AWESOME!!! I am the HOA Manager of a Residential Community in McHenry, MD called Ridgeview Valley and we were blessed with a huge Red Barn. The developers and HOA were so excited when we came up with the idea of The Ridgeview Valley Bridal Endowment Project. We charge a facility fee and then the bride & groom choose a charity that is near and dear to their hearts that receives their facility fee dollars. It has been really exciting to see the excitement from the couples when I tell them that their rental fee is donated to a charity of their choice. Keep up the good work!
Just found this blog, and I love the entire concept! We recently had a young couple donate to a girl’s orphanage in India that I support, and it was such a remarkable story! I would love to get more involved!
Thank you Christian!
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We were inspired by the global water crisis to bring awareness to how much need there is for clean water efforts and conservation, especially in developing countries. Our big day is happening this Saturday in downtown Toronto. We thought our idea was unique when we began planning a year ago, but thankfully I see there are others out there that realize there are more important things than new towels for the quest bathroom. We are raising through Plan Canada, and are up to over $8000. CIDA is matching us 9:1 which means we are actually at over $70,000. Kudos to you for also choosing an awesome way to share the love in your life!!
~Jo