Wedding Reception Forum

Did you do grand exit/send off?

Did you have a grand exit or special send off? Would you do it again? I'm getting married 5/30/15 and I'm debating whether or not we should do one, neither one of us has been to a wedding with one so we don't have much of an opinion on it either way. We're having an intimate wedding with around 75 people and I'm not sure how many would still be there at 10pm. We were thinking that we'd release Chinese lanterns into the air, provided it isn't raining.

Re: Did you do grand exit/send off?

  • No, we didn't. I've attended many weddings and not one had a send-off.

    Also, Chinese lanterns are bad for the environment.
  • wrigleyvillewrigleyville member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its First Answer
    edited November 2014
    I have seen so many of those lanterns fail due to wind or simply not lighting/releasing them properly. I've also seen them catch things on fire.

    If you decide on a send-off, I really like the look of a sparkler send-off. Not only are they easy to use, they're better for the environment. (You're still throwing them away, but at least it isn't some huge framed thing ending up in the woods/water.) Plus, you only need several people to make it look awesome.

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    Since your reception ends at 10:00, you may still have a fair number of people there. It just depends on your crowd.
  • The venue doesn't allow sparklers. I believe just over half of our guests are 40 and up (mostly family), so my crowd is kind of old lol. I only have my photographer for 8 hours, so if I skip a send off I can have her come in an hour earlier for photos and then leave an hour early.
  • We didn't do a sendoff.  We stayed till the very end and I'm glad.....we got to see and thank (again) each of our guests as they left.  We took our time collecting our belongings and were the last ones to leave.  It would've looked silly too, as we headed to a hotel afterwards and partied with our guests at the bar.  A sendoff sounds like something from days past when the bride and groom had a sendoff and immediately left for their honeymoon.
  • Nope - we thanked our guests for coming as THEY left. It was actually a pretty fun memory to be the last ones there. Not for everyone, but we liked it.
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  • I have not seen a send off in ages.  Both my daughter and SIL and my son and DIL were on the dance floors until the end of the very last song.  They got to do their good-bye's and thank-you's and it was a lot of added fun.
  • Nope.  H and I stayed until the very end and then I stood by the door and said by to the remaining guests.  I just didn't see the point of a grand exit.  They always seem so staged to me.

    Out of the many weddings I have been to over the past few years I think only one did a grand exit. And that exit was completely staged.  In fact the couple exited the reception 3 different times just so the photographer could get a lot of shots.  It was ridiculous.

  • I hate send offs and grand exits. It's like, let's all hurry up and wait and stand for people to leave. Ehhh. We didn't do one, and even if we did we would not have used any "props". Bubbles are sticky, other things are messy, and too much work.
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  • I have not seen a send off in ages.  Both my daughter and SIL and my son and DIL were on the dance floors until the end of the very last song.  They got to do their good-bye's and thank-you's and it was a lot of added fun.
    For the last song everyone ended up dancing around us in a big circle, it was really memorable. In fact, it's one of my now-husband's favorite memories of the night. I've seen this done at a lot of weddings. It seems to be a good way to "go out with a bang" so to speak, but without actually exiting early. 
  • No, we didn't.  I was the last to leave and our reception ended at 11PM so by then people started leaving and we just said goodbyes at they left.  We were staying over at the same place so it's not like we could make an exit into a car or something.   I did want to do sparkles, just for a photo op, but didn't think it was worth it just for 1 picture. 
  • I've never seen a send-off, and we didn't do one. We were the hosts - why would we leave our party early?? I didn't want to miss anything, and felt it would be rude.

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  • We had what my H called an "organic" send-off. Our venue wouldn't allow confetti, sparklers, petals, etc. So we didn't plan anything. We stayed until the very end and after the last song the DJ announced that we were leaving. People lined up and made a tent with their arms that we ran under as they were cheering. We didn't plan it that way, it just sort of happened, i.e. "organic".

    Actually one of my favorite mental pictures of the night is looking through our car windows (which had been painted by our bridal party) at everyone waving goodbye.

    It worked for us because we didn't have to leave the party early, and we weren't having an after party. We went straight to our hotel that night and caught our flight for our HM the next morning.


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  • I went to a wedding where about 15 minutes before the scheduled end of the reception, the DJ announced that we all had to go outside (it was freezing) light sparklers (this takes WAY longer than you would expect) and form a line (all of us were pretty drunk and for some reason this was a ridiculously hard task to do at the time) and then we had to whoop and shout while the bride and groom exited. I didn't really like being semi-forced to do this, especially since everyone was having a good time dancing at the reception, and then when the exit was over, so was the reception. I know it was meant to be a cool photo op, but I guess I left feeling like it was a really annoying way to end the party.
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  • Nope.  H and I stayed until the very end and then I stood by the door and said by to the remaining guests.  I just didn't see the point of a grand exit.  They always seem so staged to me.

    Out of the many weddings I have been to over the past few years I think only one did a grand exit. And that exit was completely staged.  In fact the couple exited the reception 3 different times just so the photographer could get a lot of shots.  It was ridiculous.
    Yea, this is my experience with send offs too. The couple exits multiple times. My eyes hurt they roll so far back in my head. 
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  • I was kind of stressing about what we'd do for a send off because the only thing I've seen that I like is sparklers which our venue doesn't allow. Our ceremony and reception are on the 26th floor which would be a PITA to get people on the ground floor. I've been worrying about how I would make sure all of my stuff in the bridal suite, cards and gifts, reception decorations, etc would make it home safely.

    And most annoyingly, I had it in my head that we would need to rent a really cool car to drive away in because pictures. When we LITERALLY live 3 minutes away from our venue, and if we get a honeymoon suite at a hotel, we'd be 2 minutes away.

    And then this thread made me realize that it's not even worth doing an exit.


    Hallelujah!

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     fka dallasbetch 


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  • we thought about it but all the money that we would use to build the car we would leave in is going to wedding funds. my dad wont let us use any of his cars (muscle cars) so we will probably skip the send off.
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  • I have never seen a send-off in real life!

    Every movie with a wedding in it has a send-off though!

  • I've only seen one send-off, and that was because the reception ended at 9:30. (The groom had waited until marriage and was in a hurry to get to "sexy time", as he called it.)

    Every other wedding I've been to, the reception goes until midnight or so, and the B&G stick around until the end. Most of the guests have left by then, so the B&G leave with the 10-20 people who are still around.
  • We sort of had one.  Everyone had bubbles to blow as we left.  There were about 20 ish people left at that point of the night, so I don't know if I'd call it a "grand" exit, but it was still fun.
  • We didn't after the reception because it didn't end until after midnight. We had a bubble exit after the ceremony though which was great for pictures! 
  • Dear Knottie0745580,

     Plan the big send-off for after the ceremony especially if it is in a different location than the reception
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