How To Incorporate Weed Into Your Wedding
By Tess BarkerYou paid a deposit to the caterer. You created three new Pinterest boards. You finally found a dress. One key detail remains, though, looming over all of your wedding plans: How are my friends and I going to find a way to smoke weed?
If cannabis is a big part of your life, chances are, you’d like to have it as part of your big day. Weddings have, in recent years, become increasingly more personal and less traditional. The cannabis world has evolved around the same timeline, and now, more than ever, there are a slough of beautiful high-end cannabis offerings, fit for the most glam of fetes. It’s no wonder, then, that weed weddings or “weedings” are enjoying a surge in popularity.
Though legal recreational cannabis has made blunts and vape pens a part of the mainstream cultural lexicon in some states, there still remain pockets of the population who are uncomfortable around cannabis use. Unfortunately for many weed-loving brides and grooms, those pockets can make their way onto your guest list.
But just because you have a mixed bag attending your wedding doesn’t mean you have to give up your dream of puffing away between dances. Here’s how to incorporate your favorite plant into your favorite day for the weed wedding of your dreams...while staying considerate your more buttoned-up guests. Looking at you, Aunt Ruth!
Build a flower fort
Jamie Lee McCormick is the owner of The Flower Daddy, a Los Angeles-based floral design company that specializes in incorporating cannabis into events and weed weddings. Though McCormick also designs traditional weddings, he estimates that around half of his brides or grooms want to incorporate cannabis in some capacity. Discretion is a concern for many of the clients he consults with.
“One of the first weed weddings I did, the bride was actually a principal at a school,” McCormick recalls. “She wanted (cannabis), but she was like, ‘How do we do this without everyone knowing?’ So I just kind of built this discreet lounge in the back of the house.”
Smoking lounges, says McCormick, are ideal for couples seeking subtlety. They can be set up a bit away from the main reception. At the principal’s wedding, says McCormick, “If people found it, they found it, and if they didn’t, they didn’t.” The lounges, he says, often function much in the same way an alcohol bar would; people tend to smoke and then get back to the party.
One bride we spoke with said that she intended for her smoking lounge to be more of a destination to chill. “It was beautiful. We had lights and candles everywhere, and big pillows for people to sit on. A lot of guests told me the smoking tent was the highlight of the evening for them.”
Elevate your appetizers
Sprinkle buds in your bouquets
Cannabis is, after all, a flower, so let your imagination blossom. “I gave my florist some cannabis leaves and had them incorporate them into my bouquet,” one bride told us. “I love weed, but my parents would not have been cool with me having it at my wedding, so this was a way for me to incorporate it without anyone really knowing. That bouquet still makes me happy when I look at pictures of it.”
McCormick also frequently designs bouquets and boutonnieres that integrate the inherent beauty of cannabis buds with other flowers, to stunning effect. Using buds in this way is a playful touch that only other cannabis users are likely to notice. It also allows for your wedding party to distribute their buds to other guests who might want to partake throughout the night. (Just make sure that if this is your plan, your venue allows smoking, and that you have a designated area for people to light up.)
Buds don’t have to be limited to bouquets, either. Consider all of the areas where you plan on having florals. You can weave cannabis into your chuppah, or create a “weed smokers” table on your seating chart, and include cannabis in that table’s centerpiece.
Give your pals the gift they really want
Tradition dictates that you give each member of your bridal party a gift at the rehearsal dinner. Nowhere, does it say, though, that this gift must be a monogrammed tank top or flask. Instead, make a little goodie bag for them, and include in it things like a vape pen and a tin of low-dose edibles.
Vape pens are a wonderfully discreet way of consuming cannabis, and your besties are the perfect people to suss out who may or may not want to partake. Putting a half dozen or so pens into the hands of your closest friends will ensure that everyone who wants to imbibe will eventually have the opportunity to.
Stay on budget
There are few tasks as difficult as keeping a wedding affordable. The key to throwing an epic party without going into Herculean debt is to create a budget and stick to each of your line items. If having cannabis at your wedding is a priority, make a line item for it, and talk to anyone who is helping you pay for the wedding. How much they are comfortable contributing towards the bud budget? “If Grandma or Mom is paying for it,” says McCormick, “you have to be very cautious.”
Start by asking yourself which cannabis elements are most important and exciting to you and your partner. Budget for those items first. If you have any discretionary funds as you continue to plan, you can always add something else. Couples who plan on serving alcohol should keep track of how many guests will be drinking (and how many will be drinking heavily) before putting in their liquor order.
It’s a good idea to use this same mentality when calculating how much cannabis you’ll want to have on hand. A good rule of thumb, according to McCormick, is to plan on having about 1/8th for each guest that will be smoking.