Repost: Drink Your Coffee and Give A Bird A Home

I'm not sure what it is about coffee that gets people so excited. I enjoy the aroma, but the taste is something I guess I never acquired. (Except I will confess that I could easily be swayed to the other side of the coffee fence with enough of those yummy flavored creamers.) But regardless of whether or not you drink it, this addictive bean definitely works well for weddings. Coffee loving brides have created entire coffee loving themes for their weddings. It's a great after dinner treat, it works well as favors, and you can even use the actual beans for decoration. In fact, I placed coffee beans into hurricanes, provided by my venue, and then placed pillar candles on top for my wedding. If one of your wedding colors is brown or "espresso", as was mine, it works really well as a means of decor. They add a soft, rich color and a nice texture.

So if you're planning on incorporating coffee into your wedding in some way shape or form, then consider an organic and/or fair trade coffee. Here is a fairly extensive list of coffee manufacturers that are green in one way or another (edit: the original link from 2007 was broken, so that is a new one) . I actually learned a lot from this list. Did you know that some organic coffee growers also make it a point to be "bird friendly"? The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center deems coffee "bird friendly" when it is "shade grown," aka grown under the rain forest canopy. Over 150 species of birds have been found to live in the shade of "traditionally managed coffee and cacao (chocolate) plantations in Chiapas, Mexico, a number exceeded only in undisturbed tropical forests."

So drink your coffee and give a bird a home!

Photo Credits from Flickr: Far left photo-Catherine Buca, Top Right Photo-Kyris