Sometimes I just like to post pretty pictures of things I like, and I REALLY like sparkler send-offs. Maybe it’s because they look so magical and Hollywood ending-ey, or maybe it’s just because sparklers were the only fireworks that didn’t scare the living crabcakes out of me when I was a child (I HATED Guy Fawkes, still kind of do). Whatever, sparkler exits are awesome. It seems to be more of a thing among our friends in the US (and of course some venues won’t allow them for fire insurance reasons), but if you can do a sparkler exit, not only is it a great way to end the evening, it’s also a hell of a photo. Of course, your photographer may have gone home by then, so this is the one time I’m going to say be sure you have a friend who loves photography at the ready, because done right it really is too good a shot to miss. Safety obviously is also a concern – make sure you have a couple of sensible (and sober) friends or family members on fire marshall duty, fire extinguishers at the ready, and metal sand buckets for disposal of the hot sparklers afterwards. To make sure this works, you’ll also need more than the standard little sparklers – large ones are available online, and have about a four minute burn time. Which also means there’s no need to run down the line (often making it a better photo). Needs a little pre-planning, but as you’ll see in the pics on this post, totally worth it.Read More