How to have AWESOME Wedding Confetti

A Photographer’s guide to awesome wedding confetti, bubbles & sparklers

Here’s the thing, I go to quite a few wed­dings, prob­a­bly more than most people.

Many cou­ples, many venues, many dif­fer­ent days.

Now, my aim is to not inter­fere, not to pose or change the day, but I do a lot of observ­ing. A LOT of observing.

I’d like to think that I get to see what works when it comes to hav­ing an awe­some wed­ding, what makes them flow and how to have a super-chilled day.

Advice that I can pass on to oth­er peo­ple who are plan­ning their wed­dings, to help them have an amaz­ing day!

So, here’s my guide to wed­ding con­fet­ti, hints, tips and a few alter­na­tives too.

Advice that might mean you get con­fet­ti like this!!

Why do we throw Confetti?

So, first things first, why is it that peo­ple throw con­fet­ti over new­ly­weds?? Seems like a bit of a strange thing to do when you come to think about it. “Yey, you’re mar­ried, let me pelt you with things”!!
They reck­on we’ve been throw­ing ‘stuff’ over peo­ple since pagan times, things like rice and grain, although the word con­fet­ti comes from Italy, mean­ing ‘lit­tle sweets’. It’s meant to con­fer fer­til­i­ty and rich­es on the hap­py cou­ple and is def­i­nite­ly a fun part of the day

What sort is best to get Awesome Wedding Confetti?!

Paper con­fet­ti at one point was very much the norm at wed­dings. I have strong mem­o­ries from child­hood of walk­ing past church­es and there being the lit­tle tis­sue-paper bells and hearts lay­ing on the floor.
Times change though and after plas­tic, glit­tery stuff came and went out of fash­ion, most Church­es and venues will now, quite right­ly, ask you to use some­thing biodegrad­able. The best sort to use? From what I’ve seen, dried petals are per­fect and the small­er the bet­ter with del­phini­ums seem­ing to be the petal of choice (appar­ent­ly!) They just seem to work real­ly well because they’re ‘floaty-light’, so hang in the air bet­ter. (Top Tip there for you!)
There are loads of great sup­pli­ers out there who can advise about the best sort and also how much you need. A cou­ple I’ve come across are Shrop­shire Petals (in Shrop­shire, would you have guessed?!) and Con­fet­ti Direct (in Worcestershire).

When and where to throw it?

If in doubt, ask the venue.
Some say inside, some say out­side, some say do what­ev­er you want!
I’ve seen it thrown dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, on the exit from the cer­e­mo­ny and more com­mon­ly, at the start of the drinks recep­tion.
What I would say, is that a ‘con­fet­ti parade’ is the way to go. Every­one lined up in two rows, fac­ing, petals at the ready!

Cones or no cones?

A tricky one this as there are pros and cons either way.
Cones look real­ly cute and can fit into your whole wed­ding scheme. On the oth­er hand, stuff like that costs mon­ey and it can work real­ly well to send some­one around (maybe the flow­er­girls) with a bas­ket of petals, for peo­ple to grab a hand­ful of.
Deci­sions, decisions!

But.…. all that mon­ey you spent on cones or box­es can be spent on con­fet­ti instead, so that peo­ple can grab big hand­fuls, real­ly big hand­fuls. Just per­fect for the most awe­some wed­ding con­fet­ti photos!!!

Alternatives to petals?

You’ve got some great choic­es here, to suit per­son­al pref­er­ence.
You could use dried laven­der, autumn leaves (maybe punched out with a hole punch to make cir­cles), bird seed, so many options.
A few that I’ve seen myself.
Bub­bles — per­fect if your venue does­n’t allow con­fet­ti at all.
I’d rec­om­mend buy­ing larg­er con­tain­ers of bub­bles as the tiny lit­tle ones can be rather tricky to get decent bub­bles out of!

Or, maybe lat­er in the evening, than how about sparklers?!
A per­fect option for a twinkly night time parade, but do think about health & safe­ty!
Hav­ing ine­bri­at­ed guests, in the dark, and then giv­ing them some­thing that pointy that pro­duces a lot of heat, I mean what could pos­si­bly go wrong?!?!
You can buy sparklers that have a longer burn time than the nor­mal ‘bon­fire night’ type, which will give you a cou­ple of min­utes of sparkling. That makes it a bit eas­i­er to get them all lit and every­one lined up. Also worth hav­ing some kitchen lighters to get them going with
Final­ly, have some buck­ets of sand to drop them into after­wards
Sparkle safe­ly folks!!!

So there you have, my top tips for wed­ding day con­fet­ti, plus a few options too.
Hope it’s been useful.

If you’re look­ing for some oth­er ideas for plan­ning your wed­ding then why not check out some of the oth­ers blogs.

70 Ideas for Wed­ding Entertainment

A Guide to Out­door Weddings

31 Cool Birm­ing­ham Wed­ding Venues