fbpx

We're Chris and Micaela—ice-cream-lovers, encouragers, and wedding photographers based in Tampa, Florida! Our passion is photographing timeless weddings for joyful couples who put their marriage first! Grab a pint of your favorite ice cream, curl up on the couch, and enjoy viewing some of our recent weddings, getting all the latest planning tips, and seeing what happens behind the scenes!

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG!

We're Chris and Micaela—ice-cream-lovers, encouragers, and wedding photographers based in Miami, Florida and Guelph, Ontario! Our passion is photographing timeless weddings for joyful couples who put their marriage first! Grab a pint of your favorite ice cream, curl up on the couch, and enjoy viewing some of our recent weddings, getting all the latest planning inspiration, and learning from our best photography tips!

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG!

We're Chris and Micaela—ice-cream-lovers, encouragers, and wedding photographers in Tampa, Florida!

Our passion is photographing timeless weddings for joyful couples who put their marriage first! Grab a pint of your favorite ice cream, curl up on the couch, and enjoy viewing some of our recent weddings, getting all the latest planning tips, and seeing what happens behind the scenes!

Sparkler exits have been all the rage at weddings for the past several years, and for good reason. They’re romantic and so much fun for your guests! But some venues don’t allow sparklers, and sometimes you just want to do something a little different.

Here are some sparkler exit alternatives to inspire your wedding day!

1. Daytime Exits

Before sparkler exits were a thing, wedding guests would throw rice on the newlyweds as they exited the ceremony. Rice is definitely an option, but you’re gonna spend SO much time picking it out of your hair!

We still LOVE ceremony exits, though, and there are so many different ways to do them!

For our wedding, we had our guests toss flower petals as we exited our ceremony! Flower petals are a super easy and classy option – just make sure you’re using real petals if you’re outdoors so they’ll biodegrade!

You can also toss dried lavender, which looks a lot like rice but is a little softer!

Other daytime exit ideas:

  • Bubbles
  • Streamers or flags
  • Flower seeds or birdseed
  • Confetti (preferably biodegradable)
  • Confetti poppers
  • Autumn leaves
  • Helium balloons (though, unfortunately, no balloons are truly biodegradable)
  • Non-helium balloons (have guests toss them around indoors)
  • Sprinkles (yes, the ice cream kind!)
  • Paper airplanes
  • Dried flower petal bits (You can mix colors to make your own flower confetti!)
  • Greenery or herbs (olive leaves, rosemary leaves, etc)

P.S. The best thing about daytime exits? You can STILL do a night exit as well! That way you can either get in your sparkler fix, or use TWO of these sparkler exit alternatives rather than one!

2. Smoke bombs!

This is another daytime ceremony exit idea, but it doesn’t involve your guests tossing anything!

We’d actually recommend this one more for small ceremonies or just as something to do with your bridal party or couple photos, because running through a huge tunnel of smoke may be a little tricky to coordinate, even if it looks epic!

If you DO decide to do it as an actual ceremony or reception exit, here are our tips!

  1. Not every guest needs a smoke bomb! Just evenly space a few down the aisle.
  2. Consider getting a few similar colors rather than all the same color (e.g. pink, red, and orange; or blue, purple, and green) for a more interesting effect!

Also, be sure to have someone (like your photographer) instruct your guests how to hold the smoke bombs!

  1. Have the people at the far end of the aisle (the part you’re walking AWAY from) hold the smoke bombs lower, or even place two on the ground in the far background. This will help fill the photos with color!
  2. Have the people in the middle hold them in between (not too high or low).
  3. Have the people at the FRONT of the aisle (closest to the camera) hold the smoke bombs up high, so the smoke doesn’t fully cover you from view when you are walking through!
  4. Have everyone aim them more UP than AT you! At a 45 degree angle upward, so you don’t get hit in the face with smoke!
  5. Listen to your photographer for direction on where to pause and pose for the best photos!

3. Fireworks

Fireworks are one of our favorite sparkler exit alternatives, because they are just so epic!!

If you’re lucky enough to find a venue that will allow fireworks, you should take advantage!

Just be sure to set an early firework time, or chat with your photographer about adding extra hours of coverage to make sure they are there when the fireworks go off!

4. Bubbles at night

You may have thought of bubbles as more of a daytime exit thing, but bubbles backlit by flash can look SO COOL!

Consider getting the bigger bubble wands like the ones in the photo above for bigger bubbles!

You could also get tiny bubble wands for more but smaller bubbles, and you could even get handheld bubble blowers or a couple of small bubble machines to avoid having your guests blow the bubbles.

P.S. If it’s raining, your photographer can get a similar effect by backlighting the rain droplets!

5. Fiber Optic Wands

Chris recommends staying away from choosing glowsticks for your sparkler exit alternatives. They don’t look as great and aren’t nearly as bright as sparklers.

The ACTUAL next best thing? Fiber optic wands! Get them in white or orange and they’ll be the closest thing to sparklers you can get!

Get some fiber optic wands here!

6. Sky Lanterns

Because who doesn’t deserve their Rapunzel moment?

Seriously, though, I think there is no dreamier alternative to a sparkler exit than floating paper lanterns.

You’ll need a LOT of them to make it look really epic like in the photos above, but we can still make it look amazing if you’re having a smaller wedding just by doing some tighter shots!

Still need more sparkler exit alternatives?

Send us an email at hello@chrisandmicaela.com! We’d love to help you come up with a unique idea that is perfect for your wedding and your personalities!

And if you’re looking for a wedding photographer to help you capture your sparkler exit alternatives, look no further 😘

We’re Chris and Micaela, Tampa wedding photographers for couples who put their marriage first!

We are a husband and wife wedding photography team – we met at a photography conference, merged our businesses, and now we LOVE serving couples not only by capturing their photos but also by cheering them on and investing in their marriage!

Our biggest goal is that by working with us, our couples will grow closer together and fall even more in love with each other ❤️

Click here to contact us about your engagement or wedding photos!

Pin it for later:

Purple smoke bomb photos at wedding

Planning Tips, Wedding Tips

September 22, 2020

6 Unique Sparkler Exit Alternatives

commentS

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

about us ⟶

Hey, welcome to our blog! We're Chris and Micaela—ice-cream-lovers, encouragers, and wedding photographers in Tampa, Florida! Our passion is photographing timeless weddings for joyful couples who put their marriage first! Grab a pint of your favorite ice cream, curl up on the couch, and enjoy viewing some of our recent weddings, getting all the latest planning inspiration, and learning from our best photography tips!