Brides saying ‘I do’ to environmentally-friendly gowns

NEWTON, Mass. — Typically, the first color that comes to mind for a wedding dress is white, but a new store in Newton wants brides-to-be to think green.

Glo Bridal specializes in environmentally sustainable designs.

The concept appealed to Caroline Fothergill who is planning “the classic New England outdoor wedding, pretty casual. That’s our style.”

Part of her style is also to be environmentally responsible, even if it’s for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I feel like nobody thinks about how wasteful this industry is until you’re planning your wedding and spending all your money,” Fothergill said with a laugh. “And you’re realizing all of this is for one day and the dress is going to sit in my closet.”

By one estimate, the typical wedding dress takes about 2,300 gallons of water to manufacture. Much of the fabric used can be synthetic and made from petroleum products.

“Our mission is to basically have a sustainable bridal store in Boston,” said Molly Wolfberg Swarttz, the founder and owner of Glo Bridal. “What I wanted to do is basically have a place where people could feel good about what they were purchasing.”

She says it’s now possible to be fashionable and friendly to the planet at the same time.

“Gone are the days of the hemp sacks and sort of bamboo type materials that people associate with being sustainable,” Wolfberg Swarttz explained. “You can create really beautiful silks, crepes.”

Glo Bridal works with a network of small designers in North America who share the same values. They source sustainable fabrics, re-use scraps and patterns, and tend to design sleeker dresses.

With supply chain problems crippling world trade, keeping the process local can be a big plus right now.

“Because our designers create in North America, their lead time is 3-4-5 months,” Wolfberg Swarttz said. “If you’re going overseas for production of your materials and garments, it’s at least a year at this point.”

Dresses are also customizable. “You can take the top of one dress by a designer and put it on the bottom of another one of their dresses,” added Wolfberg Swarttz.

Fothergill had no trouble finding the dress of her dreams. She can cross that off her list and move on to planning the next phase of her big day.

“The fact that this shop exists, and it’s not hard, and all I have to do is show up and there’s a beautiful selection and I can feel great about it, I just love everything about it,” Fothergill said.

Wolfberg Swarttz believes the design of the dresses, with their cleaner lines and less fabric, are particularly attractive to brides in this area.

The cost can run about $2,500 which she says is the price most brides around here end up paying for a traditional dress.

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