Rice?

When considering what to have tossed at us after the marriage, we knew of course it wouldn't be rice.  While it would be a fun tradition to continue...we are too eco-geek to use rice and risk killing some poor innocent wildlife.  So we started to look for alternatives.

The first alternative that has become common place is blowing bubbles.

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There are tons of cute bubble containers out there...

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And it does look quite appealing for photographs.  But to us, using bubbles had a few downfalls.  Besides it seeming over done, future hubs pointed out that all ~200 guests would be blowing directly at us and there was a great chance to have bubble to eye contact.  Also from a friend's wedding that had bubbles, I remember that a few of the containers leaked/cracked and coated the other containers in soapy water.  As we both didn't want to deal with stinging eye pain or soapy messes, bubbles were out.

The next alternative was eco-confetti.  I absolutely loved this alternative.  On the market, you can find a wide variety of confetti that is water soluble and biodegradable.  After the next rainfall, or showing of the garden hose, the confetti will magically be gone.

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Additionally, there are also varieties of eco-confetti that contain plantable seeds, often times wildflowers.  After being tossed and biodegrading into the soil, the site where you were married will now grow flowers.  

As seen in Martha from WeddingThings

Sounds like fun... doesn't it?  Sadly while both of these are wonderful solutions to use instead rice, they won't work well for the city park.   As we are marrying in one of the smaller heavy traffic parks, I'm sure the city would not be pleased with piles of confetti laying around until it rains.  We might even find ourselves with a littering fine...  ;)  And seeing as how you can't run a vacuum in a park... there's no real great way to clean it up.  Had we been marrying at a relative's empty field, then we could have easily throw the ecofetti and even possibly used the wildflower mix.  But alas... it's not for us.

At the point where I was about to submit to giving into bubbles or maybe the idea of bird seed, future hubs had a wonderful idea. (Yes, a great way to get the rice effect without bird injury is to substitute a bird seed instead.  The birds can eat the seed without issue and you shouldn't make too much of a mess.)  He asked if we could do a netted butterfly release.  I squealed with delight at the idea as I LOVE butterflies!

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But upon looking into costs, I came to realize that we couldn't do a grand butterfly release as to let loose 100 butterflies costs around $4-500.  Yet I did see that we could do something more simple along the lines of a dozen butterflies in a netted box or cage.  After the wedding we could have our guests surround us in the park as we open the box and let 12 beauties fly free!

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A local place called Wish upon a Butterfly sells indigenous Painted Lady butterflies at $50 for a dozen.

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Monarchs and Black Swallowtails are $85 for a dozen.  I also found some other locations outside of the area but to ensure the butterflies survival and arrival alive, it is better to go local.  An important thing to remember when purchasing butterflies is that you are releasing butterflies native to your state and habitat.  This is so you don't accidentally release an invasive species that will out compete the resident butterflies.  If you go to ButterflyBreeders.org, they have a listing as to what butterflies are allowed to be purchased for your state and locations to buy the butterflies at.

Anyone else stumble upon butterflies as a wedding ceremony send off and find yourself delighted?