How to Make Your Own Wedding Wands

Wedding wands are the fun alternative to tossing rice, birdseed, confetti or bubbles at the happy couple as they leave the reception and to welcome the new "Mr & Mrs" to the reception. Wedding wands are normally made of lightweight plastic with a long streamer of ribbon attached to it. Normally, the ribbon is personalized or contains a printed message such as "Happily Ever After" or "This Day I Married My Friend". Purchasing pre-made wedding wands require some assembly, so why not make your own? For the do-it-yourself, crafty brides this is an easy and relatively inexpensive project to make for your wedding.

First you will need to gather some supplies. First go to the local hardware or lumber supply store and purchase dowels (small round wooden spindles). Dowels are available in varying sizes and thickness. You will have to cut these dowels down as they normally usually come in long lengths; you should be able to get several smaller ones out of one long dowel. Sand down each cut side with a bit of sandpaper so that your guests can hold them without splinters.

Once you have all your dowels sized, cut and sanded visit your local craft store. Purchase paint, ribbon, and anything you may want to "top" off your wand with. You will also need a hot glue gun to attach the items to the wands. Once you have purchased all the supplies it's time to assemble and make the wands.

First paint the dowels and let them dry. Then cut ribbon to your desired length. The ribbon should be the full length of the wand. You can use more than one ribbon, if you choose. Using the hot glue gun, attach the ribbon to the top of the wand (dowel). Then to finish your wands off, top them off with a butterfly, a heart, a feather, or another object which reflects your wedding style.

Finally to display your wedding wands a nice touch is to purchase a large glass vase, fill with sand, stones or glass beads (all available at your local craft store) and simply place your wands in the vase. You can attach ribbon around the vase with a card which reads "Please take a wedding wand and wave in our joy".