Couple Reaches Goal, Recycles 400,000 Cans to Pay for Wedding
Andrea Parrish and Peter Geyer will be married on July 31, thanks to their plan to raise money in an environmentally friendly way. Photo: Andrea Parrish and Peter Geyer
Back in January, Tonic reported on Andrea Parrish and Peter Geyer’s rather ingenious goal for how they’d pay for their July wedding.
Their plan was to collect and recycle 400,000 aluminum cans by this month in order to pay for their wedding, which they planned to be in the $3,500-4,000 range.
At that point, they had collected nearly 100,000 cans, meaning another 300,000-plus cans to go. It was a lofty goal, but if you’re going to dream, you might as well dream big.
Well, as Yahoo Green reported, the Spokane couple made good on their goal, reaching the 400,000 mark last week. Along with the WeddingCans.com website they built and letting friends know about their pursuit via social media, the couple also got some corporate help.
Alcoa donated 150,000 cans and United Recycling Services chipped in another 73,000. According to the article, the official wedding budget is $3,800 for 150 guests, with $1,000 going toward the venue (Corbin Art Center), food and drinks being mostly potluck, the flowers being grown by the bride’s sister-in-law and party music coming from “DJ by iPods.”
Clothing for the bride and groom should come in at less than $500, with the matron of honor’s mother-in-law sewing the wedding dress.
And even though they reached their goal, that doesn’t mean the can collecting stops. In fact, the couple continues to do so in order to pay for their honeymoon, as well as donate money to both Doctors Without Borders and Rim Country Land Institute.
In addition, others have apparently been inspired by the couple’s ingenuity and are doing the same, be it to raise funds for a wedding or give to deserving causes.
The happy (and eco-friendly) couple will be married on Saturday, July 31.
Story by Marc Hertz, originally published on July 1, 2010 on Tonic
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Janet
posted on July 2nd, 2010 at 4:58 pm
There are so many things to take away from this…they set a goal and worked hard to achieve it, they earned money by doing something good for the earth by recycling the cans, and they hopefully inspired countless others by sharing their pursuit. Awesome!
jt
posted on July 25th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
its so touching :(
Michael Marks
posted on August 3rd, 2010 at 12:23 pm
It would be great if ALCOA and United Recycling Services would donate to Recycling for Food, Inc. as well. It’s nice that they helped this couple achieve their goals, but there is a lot of good that can be done if these companies could help with more.
Terry
posted on August 17th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Congrats, just gotta love reading this kind of goal come to fruition.