By Dan Hansche

Traditional white weddings may be giving way to green weddings in the years to come. Clay Hill Farm, an award winning restaurant and wedding venue in Maine, is holding a green wedding giveaway for the second year in a row now. The contest, which opened in late October, will yield to the winning couple of a July wedding for up to 100 guests, free of charge. Most of the components of the wedding will be locally obtained such as the flowers, cake, music, invitations and even the honeymoon. The Clay Hill Farm Green Wedding Giveaway was the first contest of its kind that draws a parallel between devotion to a spouse and devotion to the environment.

Kittery residents Dan Hansche and Annika Wisswaesser have made it past the first round of selection in the contest and share their excitement with us about making it into the "top 5".

Here we are, fiancés staring at a daunting month ahead –one of five couples to make it into the Green Wedding Giveaway finals, we now must rally a plethora of online votes to ensure we win. We both work for White Pine Programs (www.whitepineprograms.org) as environmental educators. Dan is also a wildlife biologist, and Annika is also a fine artist. Our submission process was brief –a 200-word essay about why we should make it to the top five (out of 50) green couples. Annika took the helm on an art book embodying our commitment to each other and to the Earth. We recorded an ever-quirky music video of a rowdy song Dan wrote for Annika (http://www.facebook.com). Where most of the entries were quite tame and conservative, our supervisor said, “you look like freaks!” We hoped this was in our favor, at least causing us to be memorable. We’ve made it this far and now ask you, our community to vote for your local environmental educators who not only personally live in an awareness of the Earth and its needs but also support the Seacoast’s need for nature-based education.

Please vote local and green at: www.greenweddinggiveaway.com

With thanks for the Green Alliance’s support,

Dan Hansche & Annika Wisswaesser

Kittery, Maine