A Guide to Sparklers at Weddings
Sparklers have rapidly become one of the highlights of any wedding. Also known as Confetti : Redux , also known as fiery death sticks, also known as stabby stabby burn burns, these are a great way to fill the interim between the end of your speeches and the first dance, the evening send off or to warm the chill of winter.
Aaaaand there’s a right way and a wrong way to implement these into your wedding. Here’s some information to guide you through the do’s and don’ts to help this part of your day go off safely as sometimes I’ve been burned, metaphorically as well as physically.
The first thing to consider is when you’re planning to have them. An evening send-off is quite a classy way to go – straight to the hospital if you have a wedding full of ravers and beer monsters. I’m quoting from experience here too. I’ll sometimes be asked to stay right until the end and on the three occasions we had sparklers at the end of the night SOMETHING bad happened. I’ll still do the late ones but I’m super twitchy about safety when I do.
Case 1: The guests were so smashed one guy tried to light the wrong end, a lady got so excited it became all too much and she passed out and smashed a tea light with her face and the barn almost caught fire.
Case 2: Everyone was so drunk on gin that there wasn’t so much an aisle of sparklers to walk through more a medieval flaming arrow fest which would of made any Gregorian knight proud.
Case 3: All went well until the groom turned towards the bride, with sparkler in hand, to say how awesome that was and almost poked her in the eye with it.
So like, things can go wrong if you and your crew are of that persuasion.
There’s also the right way and the wrong way to light them, here are the three ways:
Incandescents: Matches / Candles / Cigarette lighters
Directed energy: Plumbers blowtorch
Professional: Portfires
Safety Matches
Matches and candles are the least successful way to light sparklers. In order for a sparkler to light, it has to be in constant contact with the source of ignition to reach the critical heat before it catches. Plus, the wind can ruin your chances and because you’ll be outside, you’ll probably have some of that. Yes you can do it this way, but if you want everybody lit up at once it’ll be tricky. Plus, you’ll have to supply the sparklers and also, what are you going to do with 100 lighters afterwards when nobody smokes much anymore?
Plumber’s blowtorch
These are a step up from incandescent sources. They burn harder, hotter and cost about £15. They still take a little while to light a sparkler but once you’ve got a few sparklers lit people can light off each other and away you go. They still suffer the same as incandescent sources in that shaky hands can slow things down but wind won’t mess with you when using these.
Portfires
These are fairly new to the scene and are what professional firework display teams use. They’re the best options. At about £3.50 for a pack of 4 they are a long stick that burns for about 4 minutes (think – mini roman candle) and boy do they burn. They are effectively a sparkler without the metal skeleton. Sparklers light instantly. You can have two of these on the go at once and walk past everyone lighting them as you go. Be the envy of all your friends when you have portfires. Because these burn intensely be mindful on how they’re held and disposed of.
Types of sparklers:
Sometimes people buy the wrong sparklers and it’s an easy mistake to make. But a simple one to correct. First rule of sparklers – buy the 18 inch ones. Some venues allow indoor sparklers and they’re about 5 inches long. But whatever you do don’t get shorter ones for outdoors, by the time you’ve lit the second one the first will have gone out.
Buying sparklers for weddings:
You can buy these online easy enough, fireworkcrazy does all of the things mentioned here and it’s where I send couples but please note, delivery charges on fireworks are about £20 because they need special treatment by the courier. If you have a local supplier nearby it might be easier on the pocket to use them instead.
Everything else about sparklers at your do:
A lot of what I’ve written about here is purely based on experience and the things I’ve seen and here’s some more tips for you.
‘Let love sparkle’ paper sparkler sleeves:
So you know those things you can put at the end of sparklers that say ‘let love sparkle – Jake & Rob 20/02/20XX?, the ones made of paper, that guests never take off before lighting their sparklers, that catch fire, lift up on a breeze and land on a hay bale that continues the ‘fire party’. Beware of those.
Leaving sparklers out in the open for everyone to get to:
This has happened a lot. Fire pits on the go, a crisp autumn wedding, the B+G are looking forward to their aisle of fire only to come out to find they’ve already been lit with four per person. It’s a good idea to keep them hidden and surprise everyone when the time comes if there’s an obvious source of ignition about, like a fire pit.
Lighting more than one sparkler at once:
This is a mistake I made once, which the venue manager saw (at a venue that didn’t allow sparklers). If you do light a bunch of sparklers they’ll self-perpetuate into a fireball of parabolic proportions that literally, I kid you not, welds the sparklers together.
The next image shows what happens when a well meaning uncle lit 50 at the same time:
But at least it turned out ok in the end:
Sparklers during the day at a wedding are brighter than you might think:
Relative brightness is a thing. Sometimes one of my lovely couples will have a summer wedding but worry the sparklers won’t show up as it’s the longest day of the year and they only need me there until 10pm. But look, the sparklers will burn brighter than daylight by some measure and if timed correctly, say an hour before sunset it will actually look better than in the dark because you’ll see more of your guests in the shot. The colours will be better (as in not under an organe haze), the image will have more dynamic range and more will be in focus.
Wedding confetti and sparklers at the same time:
Look it’s was just really bad ok. Sparklers got thrown. Don’t do it.
When is the best time for Wedding Sparklers?
The most common and sane way of doing this are after the speeches and before the first dance but for summer lovers then after the first band set / before the evening food. It won’t kill your dancefloor. The more drunk your guests are the more difficult it becomes and the greater the risk of things going wrong are.
Being realistic / Pinterest is a lie:
Since 2010 there has been a sparkler photo or two floating around with the bride leaning over the groom’s knee with everyone on either side with the most perfect sparkler positioning. It looks beautiful and is something often sent to me as an example of what the couple would like to see.
Truth be told this was a very lucky shot, there’s so much going on during a wedding sparkler moment (and bear in mind a sparkler burns for about 20-30 seconds) that it’s very hard to get anything organised and communicating with the couple when they have their stabby burn sticks lit is near impossible. This is a far cry from couple photos where I can walk over and tidy the bottom of a dress. Sometimes couples are so focused on that one shot they don’t enjoy the moment they’re in and still don’t get the shot due to a random in the line doing something funky.
A Guide to Smoke Bombs at Weddings
I like smoke bombs, they fill an area nicely and give colour and depth to a background but they’re something to be respected and particularly mindful of.
They’re also potentially explosive.
Below is a photo I took with a couple where the smoke bomb was placed in the turret of a decomissioned tank. It was supposed to give the effect of the tank firing. Well, it exploded instead. Now they aren’t supposed to do that, but this one did and it’s only happened to me once but I have heard of incidents where others have and in one case a photographer lost some fingers.
Scale this up to all the photos you see where couples are holding them in the air looking cute and you can understand why this unsettles me. Sure, absolutely use them at a wedding but set them at a safe distance because the risk isn’t worth it.
If you get any, the Enola Gaye brand are the most known in photography circles. Another reason to be cautious is colour drifting onto a wedding dress and clothing. The dye can splutter out and stain things when in close proximity.
Lastly, be aware of the wind direction. I was innocently using some in the garden of a venue that had all the side doors open. Then the wind caught the smoke and gassed out 120 wedding guests (but the dancefloor looked great)!
Oh and get double what you think you’ll need. Sometimes things don’t go as expected so need a second attempt.
