Wedding Location Lighting: Answers to All Questions

The painstak­ing work of the dec­o­ra­tor can come to naught if you do not pay due atten­tion to the light­ing of the wed­ding loca­tion. In this arti­cle, we will deal with the most impor­tant ques­tions: how light­ing affects the atmos­phere of a wed­ding, how to prop­er­ly illu­mi­nate a restau­rant and an out­door area, and why you can’t save on this.

Pho­to: Kristi­na Leono­va

Why is light­ing so impor­tant at a wed­ding?

When the bud­get is lim­it­ed, you want to save on “bor­ing” things in order to free up mon­ey for decor, the per­fect wed­ding dress and a beau­ti­ful loca­tion. How­ev­er, sav­ing on light can play a cru­el joke: the wrong light can ruin your mem­o­rable pho­tos and videos. You prob­a­bly don’t want faces to look waxy or pale blue in every pho­to.

The work of the dec­o­ra­tor will also suf­fer. The lack of high-qual­i­ty light­ing can seri­ous­ly dis­tort col­ors and “eat” the beau­ty of flower arrange­ments. And if in nature guests can still admire the decor dur­ing day­light hours, then in the room you can not get the wow effect.

That is why, if the design of the loca­tion and high-qual­i­ty pho­tos are impor­tant for you, be sure to pay atten­tion to the cor­rect light­ing at the wed­ding. It is not nec­es­sary to choose expen­sive orig­i­nal light sources, the main thing is that the tech­nique per­forms its func­tion with high qual­i­ty. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, sav­ing on this point can lead to dis­as­trous con­se­quences.

Pho­to: Eliza­ve­ta Kotelevskaya

Influence on the atmosphere of the wedding

The influ­ence of light on the over­all atmos­phere of the hol­i­day can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. At the same time, light sources can not only empha­size the decor favor­ably, but also become an impor­tant design ele­ment them­selves. Here are some exam­ples:

Incan­des­cent lamps. Lamps will help cre­ate a cozy atmos­phere and sup­port the Urban and Indus­tri­al style.

Can­dles. A clas­sic and win-win choice that will fit into any style. Depend­ing on the amount, inten­si­ty of light, and design of the can­dle hold­ers, can­dles can sup­port the pomp of a clas­sic wed­ding, add glam­or, or cre­ate an inti­mate atmos­phere.

Aro­ma lamps. An option that is rarely thought about, but in vain 🙂 The influ­ence of smells can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed, not in vain, because many com­pa­nies spend a lot of mon­ey on aro­ma mar­ket­ing! Aro­ma lamps will help cre­ate dif­fused soft light and add ori­en­tal notes to the design. The main thing is not to over­do it with the smell, it should be unob­tru­sive, and not cause a headache.

Pho­to: Dmit­ry Peteshin, Niko­lai Soltanov

Search­lights. An irre­place­able light­ing detail that can serve as an inter­est­ing dec­o­ra­tion. If, when choos­ing a style, you were inspired by the gold­en age of Hol­ly­wood, vin­tage style, or designed a wed­ding in the style of Urban Chic, Indus­tri­al, then the spot­lights can not be masked — they will fit per­fect­ly into the design.

Neon. An unchang­ing trend of recent years! You can use neon let­ter­ing, high­light impor­tant decor ele­ments (for exam­ple, the cake area or cen­ter­pieces on tables) and arrange a pho­to zone.

Fairy lights. The main char­ac­ters of the most fab­u­lous evening pho­tos from wed­dings 🙂 Gar­lands cre­ate an inde­scrib­able atmos­phere in the open air, but indoors they can also play an impor­tant role in light­ing a fam­i­ly hearth or the first dance of the new­ly­weds.

Pho­to: Oleg Rezny­chenko

Lighting Options

Let’s see what options you can use to illu­mi­nate the wed­ding venue:

Video pro­jec­tors (gob­os). A tech­nique that can not only broad­cast inscrip­tions or mono­grams, but also turn your wed­ding loca­tion into a real star­ry sky!

Search­lights. Clas­sic equip­ment that can spot­light impor­tant objects such as the stage, the pre­sid­i­um of the new­ly­weds or the cake area.

Halo­gen light­ing. This option is very “glut­to­nous” both in terms of elec­tric­i­ty and elec­tric­i­ty, so it is not suit­able for every site.

LED light­en­ing. A good solu­tion for high­light­ing the loca­tion around the perime­ter.

Covered area lighting

When choos­ing a loca­tion for a wed­ding, imme­di­ate­ly pay atten­tion to both day­light and arti­fi­cial light­ing, which is turned on in the restau­rant in the evening. Large win­dows (ide­al­ly panoram­ic win­dows over­look­ing the sun­set) and light col­ors in the design will pro­vide enough light for the first part of the cel­e­bra­tion and cre­ate good con­di­tions for shoot­ing indoors.

Pho­to: Rus­lan Fedyushin

In the evening, note how the light­ing changes: it is dim or too bright, cold or warm, dif­fused or con­cen­trat­ed in spe­cif­ic areas. Also check with the ban­quet man­ag­er which light­ing modes are avail­able. So you can under­stand how dras­tic changes need to be made so that the intend­ed dec­o­ra­tion at the wed­ding looks har­mo­nious. Do not for­get to find out about the tech­ni­cal equip­ment of the site and the per­mit­ted capac­i­ties of the equip­ment — unfor­tu­nate­ly, this can seri­ous­ly lim­it the choice of light­ing options.

If you want to use the pos­si­bil­i­ties of light at your wed­ding to the max­i­mum, then con­tact a light­ing artist. He can con­ceive orig­i­nal spe­cial effects, cre­ate archi­tec­tur­al light­ing and com­plete­ly trans­form the venue into some­thing new and unique.

outdoor lighting

Pho­to: Olesya Mol­yarenko

If indoors you can be sure that at least some light­ing is guar­an­teed to you, then out­doors this con­cern falls entire­ly on your shoul­ders. Believe me, it will be dif­fi­cult to over­do it with light 🙂 There­fore, think of as many sources as pos­si­ble: gar­lands, can­dles, lamps. An inter­est­ing solu­tion would be to add chan­de­liers and floor lamps — with­out the usu­al envi­ron­ment of walls and ceil­ings, they will look unusu­al and give addi­tion­al light.

It is very impor­tant to take care of high-qual­i­ty light if you are plan­ning an evening cer­e­mo­ny. Do not rely only on gar­lands or can­dles — they can sup­port the com­po­si­tion with soft light, but it will not be enough for high-qual­i­ty pho­tos. Spot­lights can help. They will look espe­cial­ly impres­sive if you install them behind the wed­ding arch to high­light your sil­hou­ettes. Spot­lights mount­ed on the sides will high­light the details.

Pho­to: Rus­lan Fedyushin (left), Natasha Rybkin (right)

Don’t for­get: in the Chan­fash­ion Cat­a­log you will find the best dec­o­ra­torsthat will make all your dreams come true!