Stupid Question: What is the Point of the Send-off and When is it Done?

We weren't going to do one, but my fiance wants to. He wants to ride in the limo back to the hotel just us (our guests are going on their own bus). We are doing one right before our guests leave, around 10:30 PM. Most I've seen are at the end of the wedding (9 or 10 PM) and most guests are still there so everyone sees it! We aren't leaving until Monday for our honeymoon (wedding is on a Saturday).

I did one after the ceremony where we walked down the aisle people blew bubbles at us. I didn't think of it until really last minute purely for the photo op and it was a nice additional favor to give. It's super inexpensive but you're right - it's unnecessary. I didn't do it after the reception because by then a lot of people don't stay til 1030p or so anyway and it breaks the flow of the reception if we take a send off photo during

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You're right about "breaking the flow"--that's exactly what I was worried about. Plus, it would look really stupid if we do a send off, then 5 minutes later, "OK, we're back--let's continue the party."

I always thought send off were only if the couple were literally leaving right away for their honeymoon. But of course you can do it however you want! I agree that if you do a send off, you can't come back to the party lol. It should be the very very last thing before you go back to your hotel room

We’re skipping it. We’ll wave our guests of and then go back to.the reception hall for one last dance just the two of us.

The old tradition was that the bride and groom were the first to leave the reception. The idea was that since they were supposed to be virgins, they were supposed to be eager to leave to go have sex for the first time. Even if they weren't in fact virgins, they had to pretend they were for the sake of respectability, so the result was the same. So at that point, a send-off when they left the reception made sense.

These days, the couple often wants to stay and enjoy the night, so they are the last to leave. But that means you really have to have the send-off (if you have one) at the end of the ceremony, not the reception. In our case, the send-off was pretty informal: just people applauding as we walked down the steps out of the synagogue. But if you want a more elaborate one, you can.

As a wedding guest, every time a bride and groom has tried this it's just kind of a clusterf*** and it was only traditional because they bride a groom used to leave the reception a little early on purpose to leave directly for their honeymoon. We didnt do one.