Pete and Andrea; Photo via Wedding Cans

Lots of Matadorians care about the environment. And lots of us have had budget weddings.

But I think we’re all going to be bested by Pete and Andrea.

The Spokane, Washington couple are planning to pay for their wedding by recycling 400,000 aluminum cans.

On their website, Wedding Cans, Pete and Andrea explain the motives behind this unusual way of funding nuptials:

[E]ven simple weddings cost more than a few dollars. We don’t really have much extra cash sitting around, since we’re just starting out. Add that to the fact that environmental responsibility plays a big part in our lives, and we hatched the crazy plan. Pay for the wedding – with recycling. Aluminum recycling is one of the most sustainable and useful forms of recycling. We’re shooting for 400,000 aluminum cans – approximately 5 tons of empty cans. We would like to get married on July 31 – which gives us 7 months to hit the goal.

For neighbors in Spokane, Pete and Andrea teamed up with a local recycler so folks can drop off cans and earmark their earnings for the wedding. For folks elsewhere, Pete and Andrea suggest taking your cans to a local recycling center and kicking a portion of your proceeds to their project after you treat yourself to a coffee or a microbrew.

Read all about the project on their website after you check out this video:

Community Connection:

Maybe you don’t want to collect cans, but if you do want to plan a budget wedding, MatadorTrips’ co-editor, Carlo Alcos, offers plenty of practical advice in A Budget Traveler’s Guide to Wedding Planning.