March Sustainability Spotlight: Oakleaf Cottage

This month’s Sustainability Spotlight is Oakleaf Cottage. Oakleaf Cottage is a sustainable wedding venue and a longtime Green Business. They are situated on 28 acres of land on the side of Lookout Mountain. Though it is located less than five minutes from I-59, the property feels like a distant retreat.

Dave & Cris Angsten founded Oakleaf Cottage in 2016. We sat down with Cris Angsten to chat about Oakleaf Cottage and their commitment to sustainability practices.

“When we first started this, we did not know much about weddings at all,” Cris said. “So we really were just dipping our toes into it. Our fifth wedding had 60 people and it produced two truckloads of garbage. My husband and I picked through those bags and we were surprised that all of it really was garbage. And we were like, ‘We can't do this.’ That was definitely the shove.”

The Angstens initially began their sustainability journey on their own before stumbling upon green|spaces and the Green Business certification.

“There were a few things on the Green Business checklist that I really hadn't considered,” Cris said. “Some of those things we can't naturally do just because of our location, but it was still neat to see that there are other things we could be leaning toward. We’re considering having a charging station for electric cars in our parking lot. That's just one thing that was not even on my radar until I saw it as one of the potential things to do as part of the certification.”

Angsten can see a move toward more sustainable weddings, with nearby flower vendors like Creekside Flower Farm and nearby compost vendors like NewTerra Compost making it easier to have a sustainable wedding. Yet she still feels as though the wedding industry does not truly have sustainability on its radar.

“I feel like just us saying that we're a green venue puts it on some people's radar,” Cris said. “There is a move toward more sustainable weddings, but it's still kind of creeping. In terms of our impact, it feels better to me that we're not loading down our waste system with more than it really should be needing to take.”

For more information or to contact Oakleaf Cottage about hosting an event at their property, please go to https://oakleafcottage.com/contact.

Written by Anna Truss