Q & A with Sarah
Q I'm planning on getting married in the spring, but the vicar has requested guests don't throw artificial confetti. Can you suggest something that's a bit more environmentally friendly? Lorraine Chandra
A Most wedding venues have a confetti ban in place, mainly due to the sludge it creates if it's been raining and the difficulty of sweeping up all those tiny bits of foil and paper.
From a green perspective, it's also a bad idea - the foil can be a choking hazard for birds while paper confetti is often bleached and dyed with artificial colours that can leach into the ground.
As an alternative some people resort to blowing bubbles made from green detergents, but that sounds a bit too gimmicky for me.
I'm more of a traditional girl at heart, so I usually collect petals from some of the flowers in my garden, leave them to dry in the sun and put them away in a drawer until needed.
You'll find most venues won't object to dried petals being used as confetti as they're completely biodegradable, although some will still moan about the mess they've got to clean up afterwards.
Of course, most of your friends and relatives won't have planned that far ahead, I'm sure, so why not save everyone the trouble of sourcing their own natural confetti by buying in bulk?
A couple of enterprising firms have done all the hard work for you, growing a range of different flowers, harvesting their petals and packing them into convenient boxes or cones for your guests to sprinkle over you on your big day.
The Real Flower Petal Confetti Company (www.confettidirect.co.uk; 01386 555045) sells its petals by the pint.
Apparently, one pint of delphiniums, rose petals or wildflowers contains enough throwing confetti for 10 guests with prices starting at 11 plus postage and packing.
All its flowers are hand-picked and organically grown in Worcestershire, while the drying process is done on racks using just sunshine and fresh air. Tree2mydoor (www.tree2mydoor.com; 0845 241 8733) offers a similar service but prefers to use litres instead of pints.
Its Real Flower Confetti Box is equivalent to two litres of UK grown dried flower petals and comes neatly packaged in 25 paper cones for 32 plus P&P. A couple of boxes should keep even the most ardent confetti-throwing crowd happy.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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