What Is UpLighting At A Wedding? Do You Really Need Wedding Up-Lighting?
Uplighting is a way to accent the architecture in your wedding ballroom, barn or outside your wedding venue. Uplighting should not be confused with dance floor lighting. Dance floor lighting typically moves and changes base on the music and is pointed mainly at the dance floor.
Up-lighting also should not be confused with venue room lighting which is mainly used to brighten up the venue v. add color like uplighting is used for. There are some wedding venues in Connecticut that have tried to put in their own built in uplighting, but they are usually poorly placed within the room and use older technology.
Think of up-lighting as a way to bring in your wedding colors or accent those colors within your room decor. If the bridesmaid dresses are blue, then maybe a complimentary color like yellow on the walls will work for your wedding uplighting. Maybe that barn wedding is just too dark and using amber up-lighting on the wood beams will bring out the warm wood tones. Anyway you look at it – up-lighting will make your wedding photos even better. (See: Picking The Color Scheme For Your Wedding https://www.robalberti.com/blog/picking-the-color-scheme-for-your-wedding/)
A wedding light designer will take into account many factors when choosing what style lighting you need at your wedding.
- What style venue is it? Barn? Tent? Ballroom?
- How tall is the area that you want to uplight?
- Are there a lot of window in your wedding venue?
- What time do guests arrive v. when does the sunset on your wedding date? (http://www.sunrisesunset.com/)
- What architectural features are there to highlight in the room? (Columns, Arches, etc.)
- What areas of the venue do you want to HIDE? (placing lights in a room will draw your eyes to what is lit, so things that are NOT LIT will be less visible)
- Are there electrical outlets readily available where you need to place lights?
- Is there space available to place lights or will tables be too close to the area?
- What color do you want to use for uplighting? Some LED fixtures only have Red-Green-Blue color mixing. Others Wedding LED Up-lights have Red-Green-Blue-Amber-White-Ultraviolet for more color mixing choices.
- Do you want light color to remain the same throughout your wedding? Do you want your up-lights to change color – as in scene changes at a theater production? Or do you just want the ability to dim them later on when it comes to dancing?
- If lights are to be placed OUTSIDE your wedding venue – they need to be IP65 rated (able to get wet/water on them)
This is probably not a DIY kind of thing for most couples unless you have theater experience and access to $10,000 worth of lighting. A typical Wedding LED Up-lighting system is worth around $400 per light fixture with 16-30 fixtures needed for most venues.
As a wedding lighting designer – we will choose the right light fixture for each couple and venue based on all of these factors. We have 8 different styles of wedding up-lights. All are different. Not all will work for every venue or client wedding lighting needs. If the wedding vendor that you are looking at to provide up-lighting at your wedding only has one style light – there is probably something wrong.
Don’t setting for “Just Lighting” at your wedding. Poorly placed or poor quality lighting can ruin your wedding photos. We’ve seen venues place 6 light fixtures at 45 degree angles (they didn’t have enough lights to properly light the room). We’ve seen other lighting vendors skip key architectural features (light the windows v. columns) and therefor lost the effect of even having lighting.
Others have created a mess with poorly run electrical cables or created safety hazzards by running cables across doorways. Just as your friend who bought a camera at Costco probably shouldn’t be your wedding photographer – it’s probably not a great idea hiring your florist to take care of lighting at your wedding.
Your DJ should not be playing music, caring for your lighting and performing your wedding ceremony as your officiate. At Rob Alberti’s we come as a team – your DJ&MC, assistant, lighting tehnician (electrican background), photo booth attentant. It’s not one person doing everything but a team of professionals working together to make your wedding day a success.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Rob Alberti is owner of Rob Alberti’s Event Services – Wedding Disc Jockey, Master of Ceremonies, Wedding Event Director + Custom Wedding Lighting Designer rated by local brides + voted as “The Knot – Best of Weddings”, Bride’s Choice Award Winner from Wedding Wire + his work has been featured in Martha Stewart Wedding, CT Bride, VT Vows, + on numerous national wedding blogs such as Style Me Pretty, Wedding Chicks. Be sure to check out his blog, pinterest boards, Mixcloud account + on Facebook
The Berkshires & Western MA 413-562-2632
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