Not to put a damper on your wedding day, but throwing a big bash leaves behind a slightly larger carbon footprint than an everyday dinner party. But if you’d like to celebrate and be kinder to the environment, there are ways to minimize your impact and plan a delicious feast for your guests.

Caterers are experts, after all — and they likely have some strategies and ideas for planning a waste-conscious wedding that you haven’t even considered. For instance, you might ask your caterer for advice on a menu that relies on locally sourced food and drink. This way you can minimize the amount of ingredients that need to be shipped from thousands of miles away, support local farmers and showcase the best regional flavors.

Caterers can also offer perspective on what menu items and setups (like passed hors d’oeuvres or snack stations) produce the smallest amount of waste. 

Before you even hire a caterer or choose a venue, ask if they work with community-supported agricultural groups (CSAs) or regional organic farmers, suggests Kate Harrison, author of The Green Bride.

Dave Evans, president of green-certified La Prima Catering, agrees that you should ask caterers where they get their food — but also what they do with their waste. “Interview them about other green aspects of their business,” he says. “It needs to flow the whole way.”

Some caterers claim to be “green” but hire subcontractors who don’t recycle or compost and just throw everything away at the end of the night. So ask — and get ready to plan ahead. 

Bring this up early; you might need to work ahead to make arrangements with your vendors, says Harrison. It’s hard to compost unless your venue is already set up for it, but you might be able to rent a compost bin and bring your compost to local facilities after the event. If you can compost, plan a menu that makes it easy — skipping meat, raw dairy and oily foods.

If your venue doesn’t have recycling bins, ask your caterer if they might do the collection work — or, if you’re really scrappy, enlist friends and family to help. But really, the best form of recycling might be “precycling.” Skip bottles and serve drinks from refillable carafes or a beer keg. And choose reusable linens, glasses and dinnerware instead of the disposable stuff.