Wedding Blog
The tradition of showering the newlyweds as they leave the wedding comes from the Ancient Romans. The Romans showered newlyweds with nuts, seeds, and grains to symbolize wishes of good luck and abundance upon the happy couple. These days, we aren’t using nuts and grains so much–but for the modern couple, there are plenty of options to choose from!
Here are the more traditional options:
Rice: Rice is certainly the traditional, if not outdated, choice for the farewell toss. It is said that tossing rice endangers birds, but Snopes.com debunks this myth, saying that humans are the real ones in danger. Evidently, rice on smooth flooring can create a slippery situation—and a liability issue. Not to mention, the fact that rice hurts when it’s thrown at you! There is an alternative, which is wedding-friendly puffed rice, which doesn’t hurt as much when pelted at a bride and groom.
Birdseed: Has many of the same drawbacks as rice, but certainly a more eco-friendly option, as birds can actually help clean up the mess for you! However, birdseed also hurts when pelted straight at you by a slew of wedding guests. Just look at the picture below, where the groom looks quite uncomfortable. And where is his wife? Hiding behind him, of course, trying not to get pelted in the face!
Bubbles: Probably the most mess and liability-free of all the options. Bubbles come in a variety of vessels and are conveniently prepackaged.
Rose Petals: Fragrant, romantic, and expensive. But who wouldn’t love to exit in a shower of soft rose petals as they leave their ceremony? But beware: red rose petals can stain flooring, so your venue may not allow it. But for an outdoor wedding with a grassy exit, this could be perfect.
Sparklers: I feel like these have been around long enough to fit into the “traditional” category. Sparklers provide a festive exit for a bride and groom, and who doesn’t love those pictures capturing sparkler air-doodles? I don’t know if I’m alone on this, but these scare me a little. I don’t know if I would have trusted my wedding guests to wave flaming wands around me, my dress, and my hair, after an open bar.
Here are some modern twists on the farewell toss:
Lavender: Similar to birdseed and rice, but lighter and easier to clean up. The bonus of these little buds is a lovely fragrant smell that scents the air when they are inevitably crushed under people’s feet.
Eco-fetti: Biodegradable and water soluble paper confetti. Eco-friendly and vendor-friendly!
Pom-Poms: I. Love. This. Idea. I really wanted to be showered with cute little pom-poms ever since I saw this featured on OnceWed. If I had any extra space in my suitcases, I would have brought them to the Cayman Islands, but we were completely maxed out. The downside is that they must be cleaned up later, but they would be easier to clean up than rose petals or rice!
Bells: For those of you with very picky vendors, bells could be your answer. Buy little silver bells like these and add a label to them to personalize them.
Get Creative: What you use for your farewell toss is really just up to your imagination!
I once went to a wedding where the couple gave out little personalized towels just before their exit. I know, I know, it sounds weird, but at Texas A&M (My alma mater! Whoop!) football games, fans bring special little towels to wave around during the cheers in support of the Aggies. We all stood at the exit waving our towels and cheering while the bride and groom exited. As I type this out I am realizing that the more I say, the weirder it sounds, but suffice it to say that it was well-known that these were big A&M fans, and it was a really cool personal touch!
So there’s my list of farewell toss options! I’d love to hear your ideas, too! What is being tossed at you as you make your grand exit? And can you guess what we chose?
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Share this post: Making a Grand Exit
I too have fears about sparklers! I can just see my dress getting little burn spots all over it from them. As much as I like the effect, I won’t be using them. I’m going with bubbles. Mainly because I’ve wanted bubbles since I was little girl. But also because no cleanup is required and no harm can be done to my dress.
I am loving the idea of throwing lavender though! If I didn’t already have my bubbles, I would totally consider this option!
I think the towel idea was really cute 
We’re doing a petal toss after our ceremony… I’m not a very good guesser, but did you do ecofetti or bells?
I saw the grooms face being pelted by their guests and burst out laughing HAHAHAHA
cool sparklers, how they wrote LOVE
I’d love to do the poms (so cute — and definitely easy to make) but clean-up’s the issue with them. Mr. Bruschetta’s a bit obsessed with lavender, though (shhh, don’t tell him I told you!), so we might consider going that route!
My fiance has a fear of people throwing things at him. He blames it on having two older brothers.
I think we will be doing eco-fetti though…
We made pinwheels which the guests will wave and spin in delight as we make our exit.
We are doing mini flags from our home states and current state.
we’re doing bubbles, but the bridal party gets sparklers! Im guessing you did….PETALS!?
I love the lavender idea! We were originally thinking rose petals, but lavender might be a nice touch
I saw pictures from a wedding where the guests waved wands with ribbon tied to the end. It looked really cool. It would be an easy DIY project and you could choose the colors of ribbon that you want. No worries with getting pelted with hard objects.
Sparklers. I love ‘em. So cute! Something I never got to play with when I was a kid so they’re novel to me.
I really like that first image. It is odd but the only memorable exit of any wedding that I photographed was in the very first one 5 years ago. Since then it’s always been gracefull, non-event exits.
Sparklers. They are one of the only things I “always knew” I wanted. I also love fireworks but this a much more budget friendly way to get those sparks!
Bubbles look fun in pictures, but the only thing I don’t like about them is it seems to dampen the crowd enthusiasm… you don’t hear cheers and laughter because everyone is too focused on blowing bubbles!
Towels! Hello! Perfect for hockey fans, too!
Agree with LisaAnn300, the ribbon idea turns out beautifully! Remember the wedding scene at the end of ‘Sense and Sensibility’? Love these pics! http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/the-wedding-procession-in-sense-sensibility-1995/
ooh those poms are cute cute cute. original too.
we used streamer throws. http://tiny.cc/2o2ow
They were so much fun and made for really fun pictures (like ribbon wands but with much more pop).
The best part is they stay attached to the thrower’s hand so once the ribbons have unfurled each person just has to toss their throw in the trash on the way out. So you get the fun of having stuff thrown but not the mess that many churches/venues prohibit.
i hadn’t considered anything, and was gonna skip it….until someone showed me a picture of pom-poms being shaken (shook? shaked?) at the bride and groom….and since our wedding is a football weekend, i’d love to get them in my alma mater’s school colors!
Sparklers for us! If I had to guess, I think you did petals.
And the Aggie towels so doesn’t sound that weird to me. I may be biased though because I’m a native Texan and have a few friends that went to A&M and that sounds like something they would love. Gotta love that Aggie school spirit–there’s nothing like it.
@BaghdadBride: I love this idea! Your pictures look amazing!
hhmm… I wanna say rose petals…but I’m a lousy guesser.
my guess is homemade confetti - from stuff you cut up on the island! eco friendly of course..
We are thinking of doing a balloon release. We found a vendor online (Balloons Tomorrow) that offers 100% biodegradable balloons so they are eco-friendly! I blogged about it here… http://crosscountrywed.blogspot.com/2009/06/up.html
Ribbons, streamers, biodegradable balloons, cheerleader pom-poms…awesome ideas! If only I would have posted about this before our wedding!
Haha, that guy dodging the birdseed is hilarious. I was leaning towards sparklers, but now I’m all confused. 
For my cousin’s wedding, we all saved and dried rose petals from the family gardens for her wedding. So she was showered with flowers from both of her Grandmothers’ gardens, her childhood garden, and the garden of her only aunt. She got married in August so we dried flowers all summer long!
I still don’t get it, (there was another post a few days ago like this) Where are we exiting too?
My venue is my reception too, are you assuming we are at a church or going to some flight afterward?
@beaninca: The exit I’m referring to is the exit from the reception to the getaway car at the very end of the reception.
So far we don’t have a toss of any kind planned. Our church doesn’t allow anything at all to be tossed, and I’m afraid if we wait until the end of the reception then there won’t be many people left.
we’re doing sparklers because 1) we’re exiting the reception at night, 2) it’s 4th of July!
i shall make it a point to keep a wide berth in case of hair spray + sparklers = BOOOM!
We are getting married in October near the water and are leaving by boat, so we plan on using leaves and rose petals as people male a “tunnel” wish us well as we head down the dock to the boat.
[...] my last post, I discussed making a grand exit. Some of you took a guess at what we chose to be showered with as we made our getaway, and for [...]
Paper airplanes!! That’s what I wanted to do, especially since my husband and I are both aerospace engineers. Put a small sheet of paper at each place setting and guests can make them during dinner.
Sadly, our venue vetoed pretty much anything that involved cleanup. I looked at the streamers mentioned above, but the only ones I could find were too pricey. We went with bubbles, which were fun and looked cool in the photos.
[...] throwing nuts or seeds at the couple, since those represent “seed.” And here’s a weddingbee post about options. Another weddingbee post I found amusing was about the differences in UK [...]
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Mrs. Kitten, Austin/Grand Cayman
Age and Occupation: 25, Law Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Dental Student
Engagement Date: October 19, 2006
Wedding Date: April, 2009
Venue: The Grand Old House, Grand Cayman
About Me: In 2009 I will get married (after a two and a half year engagement!), become an Army wife, graduate from law school, take the bar, move from Austin to Washington, D.C., and start my career as a lawyer! With all this going on, Mr. Kitten and I decided to have a tropical, "stress-free" destination wedding. Nevertheless, my micromanaging, detail-oriented, perfectionist side has prevailed---I am currently obsessed with every last detail of my "stress-free" destination wedding! But most of all, I'm beyond excited to become Mrs. Kitten on a fabulous Caribbean vacation surrounded by my friends and family!
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