I adore confetti, it is a must for every wedding, however I find many brides and grooms overlook this romantic moment and gorgeous photo opportunity.
So where does the tradition come from, according to Wiki it is a tradition that has stemmed from the Hindus throwing rice at their celebrations and was introduced to Europe by the The Ven. Thomas Dealty, rector of St. Mary's Church in Swillington between 1872-1878, and he is credited with having introduced the habit of throwing confetti at weddings, from his observation of rice thrown at Hindu weddings in his previous position as Archdeacon of Madras.
The word confetti also comes from the Italian tradition of providing sugar coated almonds, confit.
Having had a lot of experience now with the art of confetti I thought I would share a few ideas and tips with you.
It seems now that the wedding party have to provide the confetti for their guests. Way back, many moons ago when I was a young girl, I remember at all weddings it was the guests who bought the confetti and took a cardboard box of the lovely retro horseshoe confetti in their handbags ready to throw at weddings.
This is now something of the past and guests expect it to be provided for them at weddings and rarely do I see guests arriving at weddings with their confetti at the ready!
Perhaps it is as we are also now faced with the non eco friendliness of confetti having had it banned in so many churches due to the mess left behind that guests are never quite sure of the protocol and wait to see what is provided when they arrive.
So for the past few years we have found fresh or freeze dried petals were the way forward here in the Spanish churches but it is still a good idea to double check first.
If the church or ceremony area where you live still bans confetti then do not write this off, good opportunities can be found throughout the celebrations, when the bride and groom enter the reception or cocktail, at the cake cutting or even the first dance.
You can even have gorgeous retro style confetti balloons over the dance floor ready to pop over your heads as you do your first waltz :)!
Petals are either presented in baskets for the guests to grab a handful or in pretty confetti cones of which there are many different styles and colours available.
The advantage of providing delicate petals in cones is if the guests are clutching a handful of rose petals for a long time, sweaty hot hands and petals are not a good combination resulting in soggy squashed petals being thrown in clumps by the time the bride and groom make their exit from their ceremony.
Confetti cones are still a very popular item at our weddings, particularly our decorated and personalised ones and prevent the soggy hand syndrome!
This year we took a look at presenting some different ideas for our confetti at weddings aside from the petals, rice, lavender, dried delphiniums and petals (I am not personally keen on the smell of the dried flowers).
The fabulous eco friendly rice butterfly confetti has been a big hit combined with the petals in confetti cones. It stays in the air longer, as it is lighter, and is very pretty and of course eco friendly which is hugely important to me.
We also created some lovely personalised paper confetti bags, again stuffed with rose petals and rice butterflies, these are rather fun and we aptly used Spanish graphics and words on them such as Petalos de Rosas, a huge hit and very vintage :)
I do love the retro though and see this coming back into our weddings for 2013, using brightly coloured polka dot style paper confetti, gorgeous colour combinations of biodegradable tissue paper confetti with a bit of sparkle and different ideas of presenting it, either stuffed into see through glassine envelopes or to get into the Mexican fiesta style spirit of things presented as Cascarones in brightly coloured eggs!
You do not need to provide confetti for every guest, this is something that to be honest if you were providing 120 cones the costs would soon mount up and it is an awful lot of confetti cones to fit into baskets and rather a lot of people that need to be near you to throw it!
Usually for a wedding party of 100 people I suggest that about 30 cones or confetti bags are suffice for guests to take and throw over the happy couple, obviously if you wish to add more then the merrier but if you are panicking about providing everyone with a confetti cone or bag don´t.
If you want to do the maximum then I would suggest one cone per couple, it is the girls that love to throw them!
Present the confetti either in a basket for your ushers to hand out to your guests or place them on the seats near the ceremony and down the aisle.
Let´s not forget we do not need a wedding to thrown confetti it is a fun thing to do for hen nights, Christmas and New Year, perhaps we can even shower our friends on their birthdays just for a bit of colour and fun :)!
I am certainly going to have a go at the Cascarones for New Year they look rather fun and if you have one broken over your head it is supposed to bring you luck!
For our 2013 weddings and parties we will be offering a whole range of ideas for confetti from the pretty cones, rice butterflies, petal bags, retro style confetti, laser cut confetti shapes and confetti balloons. If I succeed with the eggs for New Year then we will offer these but do think this will be a no go, I cannot see us blowing eggs in June!
