Weed Weddings and Marijuana Marriages: Can Cannabis Couples Last?
These days, canna marriage last?
In U.S. states where marijuana is legal, the weed wedding industry is booming. A hybrid culture is happening, comprised of newly launched businesses, created to meet the demands of a new marijuana marriage ceremony trend. The presence of cannabis benefits bridezillas, bridesmaids and wedding guests alike.
Many companies can be found exhibiting at the Cannabis Wedding Expo, where couples can meet various marijuana vendors and cannabis professionals, who can help infuse pot and paraphernalia into a couple’s wedding plans. Expos currently take place in Denver and California.
In addition to a traditional open bar, some couples are opting for free-flowing open bars filled with marijuana, known as “bud bars.”
Top Shelf Budtending is one such vendor.
Andrew Mieure of TSB explained: “Instead of having a bartender, they have a budtender. I take the client to a dispensary. We’ll show you everything you need to know about the bud or edible you want. We’ll help you to pick out the exact combination for what you need at your event.”
Under Colorado’s Amendment 64, you are allowed to gift one ounce of marijuana to anyone over 21. Beautifully decorated, wedding-themed bud jars and ganja gift bags are available to give to departing wedding guests. (That sure beats the tiny jar of olive oil I was given at the last NYPD wedding I photographed.) Although the concept seems pretty DIY, it’s easier to delegate the responsibility.
Some would argue that the wedding industry is a racket, and this is simply the latest attempt for people to cash in on the green rush going mainstream.
Bec Koop operates a cannabis-friendly wedding organization service and is one of the founders of the expo.
Koop began her career in the cannabis industry in 2013, working at a local dispensary, while running a wedding floral business on weekends. She fused the two together in 2014 to launch Irie Weddings & Events, offering customers the cannabis wedding of their dreams.
“We have people who are already outreaching to us for 2020, a lot of foresight coming from these so-called lazy stoners,” Koop told Bloomberg.
Four separate brides-to-be approached Top Shelf Budtending about booking them on 4/20.
Niki McDonald, a former traditional wedding planner whose website reads “cannabis is the new champagne,” launched her cannabis wedding planning company, Love and Marij, in 2014.
Her company offers to integrate the plant into every aspect of a couple’s big day, if desired.
“In legal states, the sky’s the limit!” McDonald told The Knot. “You can light up in your limo, put buds in your bouquet, serve a signature strain, hotbox your hotel, and beyond. Our mission is to unite the brave pioneers of the cannabis wedding movement and prove to the world that cannabis can coexist with class.”
It’s lucrative too, according to bud bar provider Adrian Sedlin, who told Bloomberg that “there’s a lot more buzz for the buck in cannabis than in alcohol.”
Sedlin offers an unmanned cannabis bar for under $300, but with the addition of “budtenders,” who will oversee the bar and roll the joints for customers, costs can rise, with most charging $25 an hour for their services.
Again, this concept seems like a DIYer. It might be easier to roll a few hundred joints in advance, at your bachelor/ette party, then display them top shelf at the bud bar.
Something worth spending your greenbacks on would be a cannabis caterer and reputable chef. Chris Sayegh of The Herbal Chef provides multi-course, cannabis-infused fine dining. The meals are individually dosed; some are medicated and some aren’t. This allows his clients to covertly customize their menu in accordance with their seating chart—and their guests’ pot preferences. (Just in case you don’t want to dose grandma, even if it will help alleviate her glaucoma.)
Sayegh admitted the oddest meal he infused to date was a “Dove reduction.” Sensimilla squab, anyone?
If giving your bridesmaids a buzz isn’t your thing, there are a myriad of other ways to use the pot plant for medicinal uses or goodie bags on your wedding day.
Bridesmaids will probably appreciate a CBD salve to rub on those blisters from wearing wedding-weary high heels and tight taffeta dresses. If those bridesmaid’s cycles should mysteriously sync, Dr. Kerklaan’s Natural PMS cream is ready to help banish the bridesmaids of Crankenstein.
Meanwhile, frugal, drunk uncle Phil could use a pain stick to alleviate his aching muscles from flying in economy to be there to embarrass you on your big day. CBD-based skin care products and transdermal patches that take away aches and pains are a thoughtful touch.
Dani Geen works for industry icon Steve De Angelo, founder of the famed Harborside Health Center dispensary.
Cannabis saved Ms. (soon to be Mrs.) Geen, from a lifetime of pain—at 22 she was barely walking and only with a cane, choking on dangerously addictive opiates and hurting like hell, due to Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s disease and Cushing Syndrome.
Then, she got a job as an executive assistant at Harborside Health Center, where she ditched the pain pills and switched to herb. She is much healthier now. As an homage to her being rescued by cannabis, she is having a weedy wedding ceremony.
She was introduced to her fiancé by a mutual friend who knew they both loved cannabis. Super savvy and erudite, she bubbly explained why a weedy wedding was an obvious choice for her ceremony.
“Considering weed brought my fiancé and I together, it felt completely natural to have a cannabis wedding,” she explained. “Before legalization, guests had to dip away from a wedding party, if they wanted to consume cannabis. I didn’t want that during my wedding.”
While she didn’t hire a “weeding planner,” her connections in the industry definitely helped her pull it all together. There will be buds in her bouquets, as well as in her table arrangements. Her centerpieces will have “big beautiful buds” from Harbordside’s farm. The groomsman will wear “budineers”—cannabis boutonnieres.
Her ceremony on the beach ends around 4:20 p.m., and her husband and she will say “I do,” with a dab toast. While she needed a permit for the ceremony itself, no additional red tape prevented her guests, who will all be provided with either elegantly packaged, pre-rolled joints from Hepburns, (reminiscent of Les Anis de Flavigny Violet Mints), or vape pens, for toking up after the I Dos.
From there, everyone will decamp to a vintage venue in Monterey for the reception. Their gift bags will have bath salts (no, not that kind!) from Humbleflower Company, and her dessert bar will have medicated macaroons, cookies and cotton candy from various vendors.
“I want to show that this is a lifestyle,” Geen said. “You can have a classy wedding with cannabis, that isn’t like a college bong session. People want to let loose at weddings and thoroughly enjoy themselves, in a controlled environment.”
To that end, the couple’s hash bar will be run by Holly Alberti from Healthy Headie.
It’s not often that HIGH TIMES scoops Cosmopolitan, but marijuana marriages are becoming so mainstream and popular, that Cosmopolitan Weddings will be covering Geen’s. Why have a white wedding, when yours can be green?
Have another weed wedding or cannabis ceremony idea that you’d like to share? Reach out.
RELATED: Pot Party Attendance at an All-Time High
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