Happy Spring! The weather is getting warmer, the flowers are blooming, and “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” as Tennyson said. Weddings are in the air this week, with celebrities such as Danica McKellar and David Letterman settling down, and “regular” people planning their own knot-tying events. It’s a time to celebrate, but also to be cautious. If you’re planning a wedding and you’re already diving into party preparations and white dress shopping, don’t forget a few tips to protect yourself, your privacy and the environment.

1. Your home – If a wedding announcement is in the newspaper, it essentially tells thieves that the houses belonging to the happy couple, their parents, and other people mentioned in the announcement will be empty during the ceremony and reception. After all, everyone will be celebrating the nuptials. Consider asking a friend or neighbor to watch or sit in the house while you’re gone, just to be safe. If you don’t know anyone who could do the job, local off-duty police officers are sometimes available for a fee.

2. Your email, phone number and postal mail – Wedding planning can mean filling out registries, signing up for offers, going to bridal shows, joining websites… As you navigate the maze of available resources and information, make sure you don’t fill out any requests for your address, phone number or email without knowing how the information will be used. Some contests, vendors and websites will take your information and resell it to third parties who will then use it to bombard you with unwanted communication. If there’s a “send me information” box, make sure it’s not checked. If the fine print says that the company or website can sell your info, don’t give it to them. The odds of winning that honeymoon in Hawaii are far less than the odds that your inbox will be slammed with spam.

3. Your impact on the environment- Many brides are beginning to use electronic invitations, or e-vites, to invite friends and family members to the big event. Since e-vites don’t use paper, they’re far more environmentally-friendly than embossed, gilded paper invites. And they cost little to nothing, unlike paper invitations. If you want your wedding to be as green as possible, e-vites are the way to go. Use a search engine to find one of the many e-vite providers that will work best for you (note: you might want to follow up with phone calls for guests who don’t reply to the e-vite, in case their spam filters are set at high security levels).

4. Your identity- The e-vite idea is great for Mother Earth, but you should probably stop short of posting all of your wedding info on a public website or forum. Many brides create entire websites devoted to their own weddings, but this can backfire significantly. The more you put out there for anyone to see, the easier it is for thieves to steal your identity.

Think of it this way: If you post that Betty Smith is marrying Bob Brown on April 3 in Betty’s hometown of Redbud, IL, and you mention that the couple’s beloved dog, Skipper, will be in the ceremony, and you include the detail about how the bridesmaid’s dresses are Betty’s favorite shade of purple, and you gush about how the couple is so perfect for each other right down to their June birthdays being just a week apart, then you’ve just given thieves almost everything they need to hack a bank or email account. Most sites use security questions such as pet’s name, hometown, birthday, high school mascot and favorite color, all of which were just posted on the wedding website. If you must post information about a wedding to a public site, keep the info as vague and short as possible, and don’t include details that can be used by identity thieves.

5. Your gifts (and your guests’ identities) - When you get married, you get presents. LOTS of presents. And many of those come in the form of personal checks written out to the happy couple. If you’re having a wedding and you receive checks in advance, deposit them as quickly as possible so that they don’t sit around the house to get lost or accidentally thrown out. During the ceremony and reception, have someone appointed as a “gift monitor” to collect and keep watch over the checks and other gifts you receive. That will help minimize the chance that an uninvited guest could attend your party and find a way to slip checks or other small items into his or her pockets. A check stolen by a thief can sometimes be altered and rewritten for a larger amount and to a different recipient, which would create a big banking headache for the person who originally intended to give the check to the bride and groom.

If your ceremony or reception is held in a public place (restaurant, convention center, etc.), you might consider making an announcement telling your guests not to leave their purses or wallets unattended. In a venue where anyone can wander in and pretend to belong, the chance of theft can go up. No one wants to arrive to a wedding as a guest but leave as a victim.

Maybe celebrities do it right when they keep their weddings secret until AFTER the fact! But for the rest of us, a measure of caution and thought in planning for weddings can protect our privacy, our possessions, and our planet.

Don’t forget to sign up for the Privacy Council’s list removal service… Start your life together on a junk-mail-free note!