Make Your Nikah Eco-Friendly (Green Islamic Wedding)
In true simple Sunnah tradition, check out these alternative ideas for greenifying your Muslim wedding ceremony, without losing any of the...

Muslim marriage is like a garden. After tilling the land and planting seeds, you hope you've grown flowers and not weeds. In the planning of a wedding however, the budget control is not as organic. With peak wedding season this summer, take a gander at alternative Nikah and Walimah* ideas to colour your marriage that much greener. Begin with Bismillah!
Get married outside
Instead of booking an expensive venue, pick a meadow, a national park, and have yourself a wedding in a forest. Hold a picnic style buffet, hang lanterns and bird feeders and tie your own names made from card, off of tree branches.

*Nikah - the legal Islamic wedding ceremony. Walima - the reception party.
Make Eco-Friendly Walima Invitations
Let friends and family know you're having a green wedding by sending them Etsy.com's naturally chic invitations made from recycled materials, which are available in all sorts of types (fonts), engraving options, colours and envelopes. Invites can be printed with soy based inks and include customised vegetable images, perfect for the eco-Muslim in you.
From Miss Print Design: Hues of green leaves printed on brown 'kraft' stock card is a popular theme in eco-weddings. Colours can be adapted to seasons and the cards can be scrapbooked later.
Didn't think you could use cork? For a more rustic message, go with an all natural cork wedding save the date cards by CorkCountryCottage on Etsy.
Organic Mehndi
By its natural ingredients, the ancient art of dying the skin with beautiful oriental patterns has always been organic. Make sure the ready-made henna tubes are free from chemicals and opt for the organic powdered form of mehndi which you make into a paste yourself.
Decorating the hands and feet with your cultural heritage is a Muslim wedding tradition for everyone to join in.
Handcrafted Marriage Dua Cards
A long-standing tradition at Muslim weddings is to bless the couple with a prophetic supplication (du`a') asking God to keep their union strong. Every Muslim doesn't have this memorised so it's an excellent idea to provide the dua at the table settings.
I made this marriage dua card using a Microsoft word document and printed onto old greeting cards before cutting out and creasing to fold. Decorate the tops with dried petals.
How about green escort cards at the table too? Names can be printed on the back and you'll have loads of fun explaining why, instead of a 'Mediterranean wedding', you chose the carbon-free transporting theme. Very novel indeed.
But if you do want more femininity, order batches of blank green bird place cards and write names, messages, duas and whatever else you fancy as there's real scope for creativity.
Solar (tea)Lights
We rely on electricity even when we don't need it; although more Britons are living off the grid and many more design their own energy efficient homes. For your own recharged evening, decorate the night air with solar lights in Masor jars.
Eco-friendly and with a built-in battery, solar lights can be charged all day. The solar light is installed in the jar lid and twists on to close.
Hang your jars from study branches or hooks and throw in a few pebbles or coloured glass for texture.
Upcycled Decorations
An Eco-Muslim will take decorative inspiration from nature (not magazines) therefore look around at what God has designed for ideas!
While confetti is a pretty convention at every wedding, it does leave an awful mess behind. How could this waste be avoided altogether? Biodegradable confetti! Available from Save On Crafts, their soluble confetti is light as snow and will wash away in the rain. Perfect!

Green up your petal confetti by dipping into vintage: use cones made from newspaper. You don't need sellotape or staples - take a sheet, fold one corner over completely, wrap into a cone and tuck in the edges.
An eco-friendly alternative to plastic confetti stars is KaBoom's brilliant plantable seed paper hearts. When these little hearts have dispersed, they will sprout and bloom various wildflowers. What a way to plant deeds and memories.
Perhaps my personal favourite eco-wedding idea is reusing your favourite storybooks as confetti and decoration. You need a couple of books with fine print and a heart or star shaped paper punch. Be cautious of what the text contains - Qur'an verses are not recommended. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet confetti by JellyBean Studio is a starting point (or just buy this!)
Create a re-usable banner for your outdoorsy-eco-friendly-wedding. How? Get your DIY apron on and ask mum, an aunt or grandma to upcycle that burlap into awesome bunting. On each triangle stencil/sew felt letters of your wedding date, 'alhamdulillah', your names. You don't need disco balls and tinsel at all!
Bridesmaids Gifts
Muslim brides are notorious for being demanding and fussy in the current wedding industry. Dresses, make up, weird co-ordination and costs - it's too much. And a poor bunch of friends will be coping with these bridezillas right until she says 'I do'. So think about the lovely ladies who are helping you pick out stuff, give them back something that will remind them of God.
While fresh flower bouquets are beautiful, they won't last as long as bouquets fashioned out of fabric. Scrunch and sew leftover satin strips into flower buds and wrap netting and florist tape to make the stems. Design a unique bouquet for each bridesmaid and add 'bling' using vintage brooches, pins and unused ear-rings.
Gift each bridesmaid with a beautiful bracelet, made entirely out of buttons! You wouldn't know these charm bracelets were recycled. Brilliant.
You could make Halal/Ethical hampers for the bridal party and even one for your husband to be (or his parents). Grab a vintage bicycle tote canvas bag and fill with a few organic cosmetics, oud (Arabic perfume), natural soap and FairTrade chocolates. It will definitely convert many to the ecological lifestyle.
Halal Favours
Sugared almonds have crossed the borders and first-world Muslims dip into every culture for their preferred favours. From all the weddings I've attended, I've received pouches of herbs, boxes of sweets, printed mugs, vintage jewellery and how-to books. Favours that give back to the earth are definitely my favourite.
For kids: Mint Herbs favour in a box for children comes packaged with 100% recycled materials, instructions and a 2" peat pot. It can planted directly in the ground or in a house plant pot so it's really easy for the little ones to begin a gardening passion.
I really like the idea of giving wrapped boxes of dried fruit and nut like these high-quality delicious fruits options from Halal Hampers.
Echeveria plant pots are trending now in the green wedding world. Place these at the reception table or bring out in the evening with thank you cards.
'Forget me not' flower seed strip favours are elegant and simple. A great filler for eco-goody bags as a way of saying thank you to guests.
Although there's wrapping which we'll have to trash categorically, a childhood tradition is these small sized Love Hearts sweets available from Halal Sweets. So they're halal for Muslims!
Other Green Wedding Ideas
Begin your marriage with organic charity - plant a wedding tree seal from Tree In A Box. Check out other green wedding ideas from Pinterest: Eco Muslim Weddings.
This is a wedding guest book I made in which all the bride's uni friends wrote messages before her wedding day. DIY: Bind handmade papers (or buy an art book) and decorate with materials found around the home; ribbons, paperclips, suitcase tags, letters, interesting photos and quotes.
A greener idea for your bouquet is to handcraft one out of paper. It looks really good and can be spray painted to any colour.
Place large pebbles and an ink pen in a handmade wicker baskets for guests to write their messages to you.

Rethink your dining wares - is disposable and compostable cutlery for you? A crafty eco-idea available in packs of 50 from Etsy.
Check out more ideas on Pinterest - Eco Muslim Weddings.