Eco friendly lighting

Hubby and I are on our path to being Earth responsible people. We started a good decade ago. I remember being a teenager and helping my parents to recycle, separate the vegetable remains to compost, turning off the lights when leaving a room, turning off the water while soaping in the shower, etc. In the past years we've also worked on replacing the lights we could with eco-friendly lights.
There are three basic steps to being green: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse. It is definitely important for us to include this in our wedding as much as possible. Lighting is one section where we can easily apply those steps.

1)Reuse.
We want to decorate our reception room with the LED christmas lights. At first I thought about buying some lights on E-bay, preferably LED so they use less energy (reduce). But then I realized I was beeing silly not to use our ressources.
We're in the United States after all. Everyone here seems to decorate their home to something extraordinary extents when comes Christmas. Meaning that most of the people we know own Christmas lights.
So we are going to reuse by borrowing lights from our family and friends. We will label each lights with the name of the person it belongs too, install them in the room a few days before the wedding, remove them a day after and give them back to their owner. Our wedding is weeks before Thanksgiving, when the official Christmas season and house decoration starts, and therefore no one will actually miss those lights.
We save money by not having to buy any and we protect the planet a little bit by reusing what's already there.

2)reduce
I love candles. And let's be honest; what's a wedding without candles? Candles scream romance, soft light and magic to me.
But there is one tiny problem. Those cheap tea light candles you buy in the stores are made of parrafin. Paraffin is a petroleum product, which is not a renewable resource and causes pollution in its production. They release soot when they burn (unhealthy) and carbon as well, contributing to a big issue I don't even need to mention. Not very eco-friendly is it?

Well there are alternatives: beewax, soy and palm oil.

Bee wax candles.
Who doesn't know bee wax? It's probably the oldest type of wax known to men. It's a renewable ressource because bees keep on creating it. As long as the beekeepers are careful in the way they harvest it, there is no damage to the bee population.
Pros: It's smokeless and smells good as it burns. It's a renewable ressource with a low impact on the environment. Last three times longer than paraffin and two times longer than soy candles.
Cons: they pretty much only come in their natural yellow, they are expensive
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Soy Candles
Those candles are definitely growing. It's a more recent product made from soy. You can find them in many colors and sented or unscented.
Pro:biodegreadable, clean burning, renewable, lasts up to 50% longer than parrafin when burning because it burns cooler. Hard enough to make in any shape.
Cons: still more expensive than regular candles (but less than bee wax), soy is a food therefore I wonder the impact on soy production and food access... The flame is not considered a "warm flame". And how we we know it's GMO free soy? Soy is soft and has to be kept in a jar.
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Vegetable-oil based candles (palm and more)
Again, a renewable ressource since it comes from the fruit of the tree. Again clean burning.
Look for GMO free.
Information on those candles seems a little bit harder to come by.

Make sure you check the labels and that it's 100% what you are looking for.

Personally I'm thinking of getting beewax candles, not only because of their great smell but also because my mom is a beekeeper at times and although she doesn't make beewax candles, I feel like it would be an extra touch to honor my parents.

Sources: www.epicureantable.com
www.greenyour.com/