Inside Dia Mirza's 'completely sustainable' wedding, with hand-crafted gift bags, reusable clothes, no food waste

Dia Mirza has offered a five-step guide to how she and husband Vaibhav Rekhi put together a completely sustainable wedding, with hand-crafted gift baskets and recyclable clothes.

From sustainable fashion to ensuring that there was no food waste, actor Dia Mirza has offered an insight into how she and her husband, Vaibhav Rekhi, planned their eco-friendly wedding. The couple tied the knot in February, and earlier this month announced that they are expecting their first child.

Dia Mirza and Vaibhav Rekhi tied the knot in February.

In a new video, Dia listed the five steps that they took to create 'a completely sustainable event'.

She said in a Brut India video that instead of giving out lavish gifts, they bought 'hand-crafted woven baskets from artisans in Meghalaya and sent everybody a plant'. Because they wanted an 'earthy wedding', they went for 'hyper-local' flowers, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of transportation. "All the decor elements were natural and locally available. A lot of them were recyclable, and were on hire, so obviously, they would get recycled again," she said.

To ensure 'that there was absolutely no food waste', the couple made sure that they knew exactly how many vegetarians and non-vegetarians were attending the wedding, and did food-plating accordingly.

"We tend to make garments that we can only wear once, and never wear again, and that is unfortunate," she said. "The last time around, I auctioned my clothes, and this time, I made sure that I got a garment that I could wear again and again."

The couple also had zero plastic at their wedding. She said they chose to spend extra on glass bottles, instead of saving money by buying 'those horrible little plastic bottles they serve water in'.

In an earlier social media post, Dia had spoken about getting a priestess to officiate the wedding. "The highest point for us was the Vedic ceremony conducted by a woman priest! I had never seen a woman performing a wedding ceremony until I attended my childhood friend Ananya’s wedding a few years ago. Ananya’s wedding gift to Vaibhav and me was to bring Sheela Atta who is her aunt and also a priestess, to perform the ceremony for us. She also painstakingly went through several hours of training to imbibe the essence of the scriptures so that she could assist Sheela Atta and translate the shlokas! It was such a privilege and a joy to be married this way," she wrote.