The wedding coordinator for our site recently asked us if we were going to have any type of "send away" at the end of the night and if we were what we'd be doing for it. Well if you remember, Fiance and I are having our reception at a historic Inn and we'll be staying at the Inn that night so we won't actually be doing the going away thing. They said they could stage a mock one but that just sounded stupid to me...what would we do just turn around and walk back in?
Then they suggested we have a going away when we leave from the church to the reception and have everyone line up as we go to our car. But since we're taking some pics after the service that means everyone would have to wait on us and then someone would have to gather them while we wait and that once again just seemed a little staged and fake to me.
But I really do like the idea of the "send away" so I needed to find some way to incorporate it. I decided I would have the "send away" as we were walking down the church aisle right after we said our vows. But then comes the question..."what should guests throw at me?" Despite the fact that our church is really old and could be easily damaged they are actually incredibly lenient about this type of stuff so my options were wide open. But I had some rules of my own
1) Sparklers were out. Flammable...indoors...historic church...sun doesn't set till an hour after the ceremony anyway....just wouldn't work.
2) I hate loud noises. For reasons I won't go into, I really can't handle the sound of anything around me popping, banging, exploding or making any type of similar sound. I don't want to be scared on my wedding day. And for other reasons, I can't think of anything worse then the sound of a bunch of bells all ringing at the same time. I want to cover my ears just thinking of it.
3) Nothing minuscule. I can't even imagine what a nightmare cleaning up rice, birdseed, rose petals or confetti would be for the poor janitor that would have to clean up after our wedding. That would be wrong of me and I'm not a selfish enough bride to put someone through that. Outdoors is one thing but indoors would be a nightmare.
4) No poor unsuspecting animal should be used for my personal amusement. No doves, No butterflies.
So that didn't leave many options. I could have done bubbles but I heard they can stain your dress and I was worried about any damage it may do to the carpet/pew seats inside the church.
Well you know the other day when I mentioned that I was looking for something completely unrelated when I found the Favors You Keep website? That thing I was looking for was streamer throws . What are streamer throws you ask? Just see below
^Credit to Innovative Photography
Streamer throws are (surprise!) streamers! I know you're asking yourself "wait a sec...aren't streamers messy?"
Well the great thing about streamer throws is that the thin streamers stay attached to a plastic capsule that you can loop around your hand. So once the streamers unravel you can just gather up all the capsules for super easy clean up. I really like the idea because they will probably make for some good pictures, people still get to throw stuff at me, they won't damage our church, and it'll be easy to clean up afterwards. The only problem is the streamer throws aren't sold in many places.
I found them at Favors You Keep and ordered their 3 capsule sample pack. Each sample pack comes with 1 white paper streamer capsule, 1 colored paper streamer capsule, and 1 silver mylar streamer capsule. Ordering was easy and shipping was lightening fast. Below is what I found when I opened the box
^The capsules are very tiny. I put an 80z water bottle next to them for comparison. The white pipe cleaner loop at the top is what you slide your hand through. You then rip off the paper bottom.
^Once you rip off the paper bottom you can see the mini streamers all rolled up in little balls. This is the colored paper streamer capsule.
^With your capsule open you then aim the streamers at your target and throw just like you were throwing a ball. The paper streamers unravel in the air and hopefully onto your victim.
^Once they have fallen you can see that the streamers are still attached to the capsule around my hand, instead of scattered all over the floor.
^All you have to do after that is gather the capsules and throw away. Easy Peasy.
What I learned from my 3 sample pack was 1) I wanted to order the streamer throws for my wedding 2) The mylar streamers unravel a lot quicker/easier/better then the paper. Some of the paper streamers didn't unroll quick enough. So get mylar 3) I liked the multi-color more then the uni-color streamers.
We decided to order enough so that the kids at the wedding could all have one and the person at the end of each row. We figured one for every person would be overkill and a waste as not everyone will want to partake. We ordered 20 overall.
Unfortunately, Favors You Keep only had silver or gold mylar streamers....not the multicolor like I wanted. So I did a little bit more research and found AeroTechnic.com, they had the throws in multi color mylar so I ordered from them.
The streamer throws from AeroTechnic came in the other day and they are pretty much the same, but I believe the ones from Favors You Keep are a higher quality. The plastic on the throws from AeroTechnic looked a little worn and not as clear as the ones from Favors You Keep and the paper bottoms are taped down unliked the ones from Favors You Keep. But AeroTechnic had the colors I wanted and they allow you to order how ever many you need, whereas with Favors You Keep you are locked into ordering boxes of 24 at a time.
Overall I've been very happy with my experience with both companies. And I'm excited to see how it ends up looking! What do you want your guests to throw at you?