The art of painting with light to create a truly magical background.
The art of painting with light to create a truly magical background.
Uplighting is the art of painting with light to create a truly magical background for the most beautiful and well planned days of your lives together as a couple. Using lighting to bring out the colors of your wedding, your bridesmaids dresses, your flowers and the aspects of the room help create a truly unique and exceptional wedding aura. The secret lies in the type of lighting, where to place the lighting, and using it to enhance and boost the already beautiful aspects of your wedding.
Just understanding what is possible with lighting is important. Some basic lighting effects that we implement:
Spot lights serve a very focused purpose, to illuminate subjects very brightly. These are generally mounted on a stand and a light operator manually moves the light to illuminate the subject or follow them. These lights are useful for weddings for grand entrances or large weddings where you would like to bring even more focus to guests or performers. These lights are helpful when working with videographers giving the subject the proper amount of light.
These lights have very focused beams that are used to highlight tables or parts of the room. They can be used to illuminate centerpieces or the cake table. They can also be used to light up focal areas of the room where toasts or speeches might be made. Mounted in the ceiling or on stands around the room these lights add a very polished feel to the overall decor of the room. Placing these lights can be time intensive if not provided by the venue and can be costly, however the effect is stunning.
LED’s or Light Emitting Diodes are the latest in event lighting. They emit virtually no heat, have very saturated and deep colors and can be very bright. They can recreate just about any color that a TV set can. These lights are made up of red, green and blue individual LEDS that when combined in different intensities blend together to create just about any color. These lights are perfect for uplighting because they emit no heat, are very durable, have no moving parts, and use very little electricity. These lights are also very lightweight enabling them to be used on stands, on the floor just just about anywhere.
Lights are placed on the ground facing the wall or the element of the room you would like to illuminate. Depending on the effect whether you want a focused beam of light, a diffuse spread of color, “a touch of blue” or lighting entire walls, a lighting expert will pick the appropriate light for the job. Knowing which light to use and tricks to shape the light and create truly stunning effects are why choosing a lighting company or expert is crucial.
Most clients want to add color to their room, or recreate an effect they’ve seen in a magazine but aren’t sure where to start or how to go about it. Hiring a company to handle the lighting is your best bet. They will set up and place lights in the appropriate places in the room, run cable or setup wireless transmitters and make sure everything is setup safely and elegantly.
We use LED lighting exclusively for events we provide uplighting for. These are the safest and most environmentally friendly lighting options because there are no bulbs to burn out or replace and lights draw very little energy. These lights cost anywhere between $350 and up depending on the fixture plus cabling, power cables, wireless transmitters and lighting controllers. To light a room it may take a few thousand dollars worth of equipment.
The entry costs are generally prohibitive to do lighting yourself, but it’s very affordable to add uplighting to your event. We offer these services either as part of our DJ packages or by themselves. The last thing you need is one of your guests burning themselves, tripping on cables, or otherwise injuring themselves on lighting that you or your friends setup. It can ruin an event and is a huge liability.
Just understanding what is possible with uplighting is helpful. Here are some basic effects that are achievable with uplighting:
The most popular effect is to provide washes of color or colors around the room. They can either be set to a static color or fade through colors at varying speeds. This can change throughout the evening. You may want a static color as guests arrive and through dinner but the lights to slowly fade through the dancing portion of the evening. These effects can be achieved with LED lighting.
LED’s can slowly fade through a number of colors, quickly change colors, strobe, or change to the beat of the music. Each of these effects may be nice for dancing. With the controller we can operate and program preset effects ahead of time so the lighting will be exactly what you expect.
This effect can look really great with a bar or the head table. Having white linens surrounding the table and placing a light or lights inside the table can add washes of color to the physical table in the room and look really neat.
A focused beam of color or light on certain aspects of the room may be requested. Having beams of light to add more focus to the cake or drama to columns or aspects of the room may be a good fit. Focused beams of light to the exits and entrances of the room may be a nice touch are also nice effects.
When coming up with a budget for your wedding think about lighting. For a fraction of the cost of extra flowers, favors, or other types of decorations you can add the elegance and impact of painting with light to your wedding. Lighting not only works well during the entire event but it allows your flowers and other decorations to shine later on in the evening. When it’s dark for the reception guests always notice the lighting and continually thank us and comment on how much it adds to their event. It looks great in the photos as well; turning ordinary candid’s during dancing into the beautiful event that your wedding deserves to be.
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