Rice, birdseed, bubbles, streamers? What are you doing after your ceremony?

Confetti is the only one in that list that is not environmentally friendly. Biodegradable things (birdseed, rice, flower petals) are cleaned up by nature so I wouldn’t factor cleanup into it. Bubbles are basically soap and water so the only quality issue would be the container.


From a guest perspective, birdseed actually hurts when it’s thrown at you (the couple) or anyone in the trajectory.

I don’t know how well bells will work. If you want rustic, maybe go with lavender buds.

Our venue only allows sparklers, which they provide.

I think the cowbell idea is awesome. I'm having the same dilemma. My venue doesn't allow sparklers, glitter, confetti, or flower petals. It will be dark outside with minimal lighting so bubbles and throwing birdseed doesn't seem practical. I was thinking about glow sticks or LED pom poms.

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I love your glow stick and LED pom pom ideas! We'll still have daylight when exiting the ceremony venue so unfortunately, those won't work for us. And we're doing a sparkler photo op during the reception.

Our ceremony is inside so I honestly didn't even think of doing anything. We were thinking of maybe doing a grand exit and using sparklers cause they have an outside hallway.

View Quoted Comment Rice is actually another one that is not allowed by a lot of venues and certain states because it kills the birds.

View Quoted Comment That is misinformation that it is hazardous to wildlife. Birds live near rice paddies and there is no carnage as a result.

View Quoted Comment Well it's still banned at a lot of places near me

We’re using these when we exit the church! Our church doesn’t allow ANYTHING to be thrown, and our ceremony is at 11:00am so any lights or sparklers wouldn’t look as good. These have little belles on the end of the stick too for the sound!

Our venue provided bubbles and it worked out so well. We had a brunch wedding.

I have seen some things on pinterest, where you can make you're own confetti. I think for a rustic themed wedding what you could do is get a heart shaped hole punch and punch little leaf hearts. Depending if its spring, summer, fall or winter you could do red and orange leaves, flower petals, or even the basic green leaves, and depending on the tree it could give differenthues of green. If you are in the winter season for your wedding you could throw pine needles. I would check out pinterest as its a my life saver when it comes to cool and new ideas!

View Quoted Comment I may check into these. Thank you!

Hi ! I wanted to respect a tradition from my country, so our guests threw... coins on us ;-) Then we had to collect everything for good luck... ;-) Even if we forgot something, there were surely people who found the coins after. Of course they were small ones... Not really visible at the photos, but it was fun !

I would skip cowbells. Handheld cowbells are not an endearing sound and could be really harsh for anyone with auditory or sensory issues. How do I know this? I work as an athletic director at a college and have boxes of cowbells sitting in my office that we hand out to fans at games (that were ordered by the previous AD). We also now hand out ear plugs at games to fans who want them.

I think bubbles are a good option, but would also encourage you to consider flower petals (dried or fresh) or some other sort of natural confetti. Here's an article with some suggestions:

https://www.catalystwedco.com/blog/biodegradable-ecofriendly-confetti

I would also check with your venue about any rules they have regarding confetti, pyrotechnics, or other similar "aisle" or "send off" things you are considering. Our venue stated that any flower petals, confetti, etc used needed to be cleaned up after, so we didn't have a flower person at our wedding, nor did we do any type of send off or aisle adornments of any kind.

We did bubbles

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This is an awesome idea!! The pics will be amazing

We did ribbon wands similar to the ones Alex posted above... Our wedding & reception was basically the same outdoor space about an hour before sunset (so we could get sunset pictures at the waters edge ~ beach wedding). I DIY'd mine with 1/2 inch ribbon in our wedding colors and attached really small bells to the end of the "sticks" (1/4 inch wooden dowels). The turned out great didn't take any time at all to make, I included them in the "favor bags" which were placed on the chairs for the ceremony. Our officiant mentioned to the guests what to do with them & were "shaken" while we exited the ceremony before the guests went to have appetizers & we did pictures. (I tried to attach pictures but apparently WW doesn't like me at the moment)

We are doing a sparkler send off!