The Little Story of a Green Wedding

by Libby Pelham | More from this Blogger

28 Aug 2010 08:21 AM

Andrea Parris and Peter Geyer wanted to get married, but like many couples, they needed money. Oh, they weren't planning on a $50,000 extravagant wedding, but they did need a reasonable $3,800 to make Andrea's dream wedding come true.

The problem was that Andrea lost her marketing writer job right after the couple had purchased a new home in Spokane, Wash. Worried that she would never be able to afford her wedding, Andrea woke up one night with a great idea - aluminum cans.

She woke Peter at 1 a.m. and told him of her plans. She wanted to collect and recycle enough aluminum cans to get the money for the wedding. Peter told her, "This is a crazy idea, but you're the type of crazy that can pull it off."

Part of her idea came from the fact that Peter, an artist, uses cans to make aluminum art. This made Andrea realize that if she could get enough cans, she could make the money.

But, it was no easy task. The couple realized they would have to collect about 400,000 aluminum cans to earn the $3,800. They started two months after they got engaged, in December 2009.

To help them, they asked family and friends to pitch in. With the help of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, their goal spread and soon, they were getting aluminum cans from everyone - even people in other parts of the country.

The couple truly got lucky when Alcon Recycling donated 150,000 cans to the cause. With that and the help of family, friends, and strangers, the couple met their goal in only 197 days. Andrea said they were both "speechless and blown away."

Perhaps one of the reasons everyone pitched it, at least those in the neighborhood, was they were tired of seeing cans! It took three dump trucks to haul away the all the cans piled up in garbage bags.

The couple was married on July 31 and Andrea said, "The day was, without a doubt, better than we could have imagined. And there wasn't a single can in sight!"

The couple's next goal is to gather enough cans for a honeymoon.

(The copyright holder of this work allows anyone to use it for any purpose including unrestricted redistribution, commercial use, and modification.)

Learn more about Libby Pelham

Libby Pelham is a web designer/freelance writer located in Memphis, TN. She has a beautiful little boy, Will, born in July of 2004.

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