Wedding Confetti and Rice Cleanup Challenges in Local Communities
Long live the newlyweds!… and down go the rice grains by the handful. A tradition that repeats in all churches whenever the two protagonists of the wedding ceremony step out onto the churchyard.
Thousands of grains that end up everywhere, obviously causing some inconvenience to the newlyweds and guests, but especially to those who afterwards have to clean up. Cleaning that becomes impossible if, besides rice, marriage participants decide to cover the new couple with tiny confetti, just as happened last Saturday in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, drawing criticism from many residents.
The problem of confetti and cleanup
A veritable snowfall of tiny paper pieces that, once the procession departs, remains on the church steps, seeping in large quantities between the cobblestones of the pavement, only to be later lifted by the wind and literally “shot” inside the shops all around the church in the following days.
“As after every wedding,” explains Elio Bresciani from the eponymous perfumery, “we also took the initiative on Saturday to clean the church steps to make access safer (the rice grains on marble steps can cause significant balance issues, ed.). This time, however, besides the rice, there was a ‘beautiful’ novelty: a real mountain of confetti, some of which had settled into the pavement, making it impossible to sweep away.”
An effort that instead was successful for the mischievous Eolo, who enjoyed for several hours lifting countless of these tiny paper pieces and depositing them inside shops and bars.
The role of animals and behavior norms
“Not even the pigeons could do anything,” continues Bresciani, “who are always happy to clean up rice grains after weddings. They turn out to be our best allies: however, paper certainly isn’t part of their diet. No one says that celebration after such an important ceremony shouldn’t happen, but it would be better to avoid causing discomfort to others.”
“Here, no one ever worries about cleaning, and in the end, it’s always us removing the signs of weddings from the steps and the street. If guests also start to mess around, I know that some municipalities ban such celebrations.”
In short, even if the problem certainly isn’t among the most serious issues, a bit more attention would suffice to prevent polluting the city and causing inconvenience to others.