Weddings. They’re the worst.

Except for when they’re actually kind of awesome. (And anti-consumption.)

You thought I was gonna give the plastic stuff a rest, didn’t you? Just for a day? FAT CHANCE. I’m totally obsessed, in a scary, potentially good but also potentially anxiety-inducing way. Nix the “potentially” on both options; I’m nothing if whole-assed about my strengths and personality disorders.

So I went to a wedding last night. First time I put my foot through the door of a religious institution in about two years, whenever I had my last wistful but ultimately doomed run-in with good, white, queerphobic, personal-space-invading Americans. And I tell you what, rushing straight over from work to slip into a back pew of our little neighborhood Catholic church only for the priest to make direct eye contact and work a long rant about punctuality (“as a constant, unchanging virtue rooted in our conviction of god’s truth, as opposed to a value, constantly changing”) was, um, exactly the sort of thing that sends me out the door, down the steps, past the fountain, and to my car.

But I was there for the bride. She wore borrowed white pearls, bright blue ribbons in her long greying hair, and looked every inch “an old hippie woman,” as she proudly told me after. She’d decorated the church with flowers “stolen” from her neighbor’s garden in fifteen minutes just before the service (mass?). The lavender and sunflowers were supplemented by a $40 bundle of roses purchased from Safeway that morning. The sanctuary smelled heavenly and I was close enough to the fountain to ignore the priest in favor of running water. “This is the first time the church has been decorated with flower arrangements in brown paper bags,” the priest reported afterwards.

One of the reasons I loved this wedding is that it was so clearly anti-consumption. I mean, this is the woman with an apiary in her kitchen garden and who brokers fresh local egg purchases for half of the town. (The knowing half.) She doled them out of the trunk of her car during the reception in recycled egg cartons, and in so doing upheld one of the “Four Rs” of zero-waste living (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse). This is only one of the many ways she works her excellent counter-cultural magic underneath the surface of this town, and on her wedding day, too.

The rest of the wedding was, well, not strictly any of your business, but suffice it to say the reception took place a local brewery (“The bar tab was about $115, all told”) and the brisket, ribs, and sauces were purchased from a nearby barbecue joint (“That one was pricier, at about $200 to feed fifty people”) and kept warm in large crockpots. Chips, dips, refried beans, and coleslaw rounded out the buffet line— much of it provided by friends, potluck-style. I ended up serving the brisket and ribs because, well, I’m handy with tongs and I hate queuing.

Leftovers were sent home in reusable plastic containers with those who stuck around long enough — so there was no food wastage, to which my Mennonite ancestors whisper cheers into my dreams — and while I wouldn’t be happy if this plasticware became a permanent installation in my own pantry, I see the bride on a weekly basis as a part of my library rounds and so it will return to sender. I walked away with a small box of goodies, and happy in the knowledge that we only took half of a garbage bag’s worth of rubbish to the tip — mostly paper plates and cups (“waxed” with plastic, as most are these days, rendering them uncompostable) as well as plastic utensils. I would have loved to spare the utensils from their trashy fate, but … it wasn’t my wedding reception, and things were moving fast during the cleanup phase.

The plastic tally was small, consisting of:

• Two plastic pinwheels, currently decorating two mason jars of flowers stolen from the reception that are brightening our library circulation desk.

• Six plastic serving bowls purchased from some dollar store, sent home with me as a donation to the library for future functions.

• One plastic-“waxed” paper cup.

• Two candy wrappers, because party favors?

And … that’s it. That’s all the plastic. We mostly ate finger foods anyway, so I didn’t even sacrifice any plastic utensils to the rubbish heap. Not that I’m really proud of myself — the credit for this waste-free, almost-zero-waste rebuttal to the modern mass-marketed American wedding celebration goes entirely to the bride, who is fantastic and spent the day after her wedding sending me pictures of her cat sitting contentedly on the morning newspaper.

I don’t really have a point to this post, except to express some excitement, wonder, awe, and ferocity over the fact that it is in fact possible to execute a wedding with grace, elegance, and a consciousness of our environmental footprint — without transforming zero-waste into a big deal, much less an “agenda.” Is the bride out there blogging up a storm over this? Nope. It’s just me, a friend, someone who appreciates the small steps people take to respect this world. And cats. I appreciate cats.