Although the solvation energies in ionic liquids are often similar to those in highly polar conventional solvents, the dynamics of solvation is markedly slower. Whereas solvation energies in conventional solvents are usually completely relaxed within 10 ps, in ionic liquids relaxation extends well into the nanosecond time range. This 1000-fold difference in the solvation response times has a pronounced retarding effect on solvent-controlled reactions and gives rise to heterogeneous kinetics for reactions and other processes that occur on ps and ns time scales. This heterogeneity is manifest in both non-exponential and excitation-wavelength dependent kinetics of excited state reactions. We have been using steady-state and time-resolved emission measurements to explore a number of model intramolecular reactions that involve charge transfer and large-amplitude solute motion in order to try to understand the distinctive kinetics that occur in ionic liquids. I will speak about our most recent results on this subject.