Choosing a beautiful eco-friendly wrapping paper for your wedding gifts is more important than you may think! Wrapping paper makes gifts more attractive to the eye, but that beauty can come at a cost to the environment if you are not careful. The good news is that there are many eco-friendly gift wrap styles to pick from.

Image: Countryliving.com

What's wrong with typical wedding wrapping paper?

In addition to using trees from environmentally devastating tree farms, shiny, laminated wrapping paper cannot be recycled. Some brands also contain lead and other metals which makes them toxic trash.

The best option for brides who get these papers is to reuse them again. However, if you are wrapping a gift for a wedding or for someone in your bridal party, there are great eco-friendly gift wrap alternatives.

Cloth Gift Wrap

Cloth gift wrap is infinitely reusable. Sites like BoBo Wrap have great tutorials for creating a number of interesting designs from a simple square of cloth. You can also use burlap, jute, organic cotton and a number of other sustainable fabrics to create your own look or buy pre-made bags for gifts and favors from companies like Teomil.

Image: Rustic wedding favor bags

Seeded Wrapping Paper

Imagine being able to grow beautiful flowers after just opening a gift by planting your wrapping paper in your home garden! In this scenario, the paper itself becomes a second gift. Little Kay Gardens offers a seeded gift wrap set that is perfect for wrapping eco-friendly wedding or engagement gifts. This set is made from recycled paper and includes Corn Poppy, Red Coreopsis, Plain Coreopsis, Black-eyed Susan, and Baby Snapdragon seeds. The twine is also compostable or plantable.

Image: Seeded Wrapping Paper

Tree-Free Wrapping Paper

If you want to avoid deforestation, tree-free wrapping papers offer a wonderful and sustainable alternative to conventional gift wrap. Of the Earth makes elegant wrapping paper from lotka, the inner bark of a high elevation evergreen Daphne shrub in Nepal. In addition to being beautiful, this handcrafted paper is known for its durability and resistance to tearing, humidity, insects and mildew.

Image: Of the Earth's lotka papers

Recycled Wrapping Paper

Buying wrapping paper that is made from 100% post-consumer waste paper is another good option. This paper has already been used once and given new life, and can often be recycled again.

Image: Lovebirds gift wrap

By going green with something simple like eco-friendly wrapping paper you can make a positive impact on the environment while demonstrating that you don't have to sacrifice style to be environmentally-conscious. Next time you're searching for the perfect wrapping paper, be green minded- a tree will thank you later.