Disposable Plates/utensils at the reception

Maybe you can educate me since I'm not the most eco-friendly person, although I try...

Wouldn't disposable plates (so paper, plastic, etc.) be more harmful than using reusable plates (glass, etc.)?

Not sure, just asking!

Be very cautious about using wood utensils! They often leach flavor into food (yuck!).

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Great question! I'm also on a budget so I don't want to rent out plates and silverware. Especially with a lot of kids running around, I don't want to chance anything breaking. But the palm leaf plates are made of palm leaf, so it's completely biodegradable

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Hi Macey!

That was a concern I had too with utensils. I'm wondering if I should use plastic utensils to avoid weird flavors or splinters. Only thing is plastic isn't very eco-friendly lol but it's also cheaper and easier for clean up.

My friend used bamboo plates which were thicker than paper plates and just used gold plastic utensils so they looked fancier than regular plastic utensils.

I'd try eco-products website, and order some samples. Sit down with the FH and see if you can get through a meal without breaking them! (My personal pet peeves about disposables). Otherwise, go with a heavyweight plastic (webstaurant.com has a boatload, as does smartyhadaparty.com) and know you did what you could!

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Oh!! That's a really good idea! I think I can look into some gold plastic utensils. Thanks so much for the advice Ashley!

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Will do. I'm already looking into some eco-product websites and Etsy. Just trying to see what I can do and should/shouldn't do haha. Thanks for the advice!

View Quoted Comment Hers was a tropical theme. Hopefully you can see the plates and utensils

View Quoted Comment Thank you! I do have something similar to this in my pinterest board.

Webrestaurantstore has better prices on palm leaf plates than that

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/treevive-by-ecochoice-10-square-palm-leaf-plate-case/175SP10.html

100 plates for $29.99

I have also used wooden cutlery several times with no leeching of flavor, no slivers and they were plenty sturdy enough.

"Bamboo plates are naturally antimicrobial and do not contain any chemical that can leach into food when served because they are produced naturally, ... and therefore, the plate will not affect the taste of food or react with food items placed in it."

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OMGSH Muriel thank you for that link! - WOW! And you said that utensils were good as well? I'm definitely going to look into this. Thanks so much!

There is a type of plastic that is considered compostable. I haven't gone down that rabbit hole yet! I'm thinking the same thing here, though. Right now my best answer is buying cheap metal silverware, have the staff put them in a plastic bin, take them home, wash them and sell them on Facebook.
I'm probably going to look into the compostable plastc before I go down that road, though.

View Quoted Comment That's a great idea, but I won't have any staff... it's being held at a community center (very pretty though) but I'll definitely need to look in to that compostable plastic. Thank you!!

What are you planning on using for cups? I am in the same boat and love the idea of the palm leaf plates, but am unsure of what to use for cups!

My husband and I used palm leaf plates for our wedding and they ended up being a hit. We wanted to do a eco friendly vegan wedding because both of us wanted to reduce the environmental impact of our wedding as much as possible. All the guests thought the plates were really great looking and many even brought it up when we went from table to table during the reception. We felt the same about the wood utensils, but also didn't want to use plastic and didn't feel the metal ones would go with our palm leaf plates. We decided on bamboo utensils because they are much stronger than the birchwood utensils and don't have that woody taste. Also, bamboo is a sustainable source because it's a grass that grows very quickly as opposed to using wood cutlery which is made from trees that have to be chopped down.

We used Chic Leaf palm leaf plates that we got from Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07STV49K3

and Bamboo Cutlery that we got from Baembu on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/100-Bamboo-Disposable-Cutlery-Set/dp/B07S2LJK41

Good luck with your wedding!