He Says: 3 Reasons You Need Lighting At Your Wedding

We used to offer lighting packages to our couples, then we said “screw it, everyone should have lighting”…so now we include a lighting package in all of our programs. Lighting makes such a huge difference in the look and feel of the room. We found people were sacrificing this to save money. I don’t agree with this, it’s like buying knock off ketchup, you can still put it on the burger, but that burger just isn’t as good. Lighting plays a huge part in all our events and I honestly feel that the events are better for having it.

Now that’s some good atmosphere

Lighting can completely change the atmosphere in a room. Don’t believe me? Go into your bedroom, take out those harsh white lights and replace them with red bulbs, now wait for your fiancé to get home and take her into the bedroom. See? It works. Having lights on dimmers is great, but I feel that changing up the color of the lights can be key in creating your perfect atmosphere. You can match the light color with your wedding colors or go in another direction and use the lights to contrast the colors you and your fiancé have chosen. You can also use the lighting to show off great parts of the room you are in. Any stone work or accent pieces look even better when lit. I like to use a lot of up lighting at my events, it’s relatively inexpensive and the effect is outstanding.

Create A Whole New World

Lighting has come a long way over the years, gone is the simple bulb. We now have lights that can re-create water, smoke effects and spell out your name on the wall or dance floor. I was at an event last week in Los Angeles and they had used multiple “water” effect lights to create the feeling of being inside a water filled cave. I love this effect, if you couple it with a fountain it really pulls the feeling of the water cave together. I also like using Gobo’s. This is a piece of steel with the couples monogram cut into it. We set up a light and project the monogram onto a wall or onto the dance floor. It’s really classy and the photos look great. They also have the big programmable lights you can put outside the venue and create a full red carpet effect for the guests as they arrive.

Sometimes You Need It To See

One of my favorite venues has 25 foot high ceilings, only 2 little chandeliers provide the light. As soon as the sun goes down, man it’s freakin’ dark in there. Sure we added light to the tables via candles, but it was still super dark. I mean night club dark. With our lighting package, we still had the look of the chandeliers, they were glowing, and we still had the glow of the candle light on the tables. But with our lights, people could actually see what they were doing and weren’t running into stuff. I even had some of the staff thank me afterwards. We didn’t flood the place with light by any means, but there was enough light to see while keeping the perfect mood.

Simon’s Gutsy Groom Advice

If possible ALWAYS try to include some extra lighting in your wedding program. If you choose our services, we’ll include it and discount any additional lighting we suggest. It sets a great mood in the room, it can completely transform a space, it certainly gives that WOW factor, (why do you think rockstars use so damn much of it???) and sometimes you just need I to be able to find your way around. But don’t let any of your guests know this. Everything you do has a reason, sure, but they don’t need to know that. I did a wedding last winter where we changed the lighting from one area to the next, in the dining area we had brighter lighting while in the lounge area we had a lower brightness to create that nightclub feel for our couple.

A word of caution…you can’t just throw your lighting around all willy nilly, there has to be a method to the madness. I always place the lighting with purpose, be it to illuminate a specific detail in the space or to light up a “dead” area in the corner. If I need to create a space within a space, I’ll use my lights to block out the space and create a whole new atmosphere in the same room.

One last thing, just because the DJ has lights DOES NOT mean those are all the lights you need. His lights will be focused on the dance floor and the dance floor alone. Talk to your planner or event designer and have them design a lighting package that works for you and your venue.

Click here to contact Gutsy Groom in regards to lighting programs and event design services.

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