In your planning process you’ve probably sampled 10 different cakes, put on 20 dresses, and spent hours online for the perfect shoes and centerpieces. Have you ever considered that you may be taking for granted the type of uplighting that’s being used at your event?
There is a difference and it’s important to know some of the trends going on in decor lighting to understand how it will impact your wedding. Decor lighting is designed to add a “wow” factor to your wedding and there’s nothing that adds that wow as effectively as uplighting.
What Uplighting Is Right For My Wedding?
Good Uplighting
Cons: Old uplighting consisted of Par Can (halogen bulbs), covered by a piece of colored gel. There are plenty of disadvantages to these lights:
- HOT: Let’s rephrase that…WICKED HOT. These are the same bulbs as used to be in car headlights and they get hot to the touch. With these positioned around the room, it’s common to burn guests, ruin dresses and pant legs and they are a fire hazard.
- Limited color options: While you can choose any color under the spectrum, once that color is set, there is no changing the gels during the event.
- Power accessibility: These old style lights have very short cables on them (because of the power draw they require) and require power cables and extensions be run across the room. Often these cables have to be taped down and run across the room.
Better Wedding Uplighting
LED Lighting: LEDs add a tremendous amount of flexibility. The traditional LED light is a significant upgrade from the halogen lamps, but still have some limitations.
Pros:
- Heat Free: LED Bulbs to do not produce the heat that Halogen lamps produce, protecting your guests and liability at an event
- Color Mixing: Long gone are the days of color gels! Now every conceivable color in the light spectrum can be achieved with basic RGB mixing
- Live color mixing: This is going to be listed on the Pros and Cons list for these fixtures. With DMX control, these lights can be changed with a controller throughout the night so that you lights change (imagine the lights changing during the big chorus of your first dance!). The bad news with the traditional fixtures is that they have to all be cabled together, leaving you huge setup fees and lots of cables taped to the floor.
Cons:
- Power: Still require extension cables
- Live color mixing: As mentioned above, live color mixing is available, but very difficult and costly to set up.
Best Uplighting
Welcome to the wireless world! The newest technology available for uplighting is battery operated and wirelessly controlled uplighting, only available right now in the Hanson Pro Systems uplights. This technology turns your uplighting into a custom light show that is easily and affordably controlled.
Pros:
- BATTERY OPERATED! No more cables, these uplights run 12-18 hours depending on the way they’re used and can be set anywhere in the room without extensions cables or tape.
- WIRELESSLY CONTROLLED DMX: Now it’s simple to control your lighting colors from a remote control at your DJ booth. This means not only can you customize your colors on the fly, but they can throughout the night, become part of your dance lighting system once that part of the night gets going.
- EASY SETUP, SAVING YOU $: Both of the previous types of uplights require long and extensive setups and the lighting company is charging you for that. Now with wireless and battery operated lighting, setup is as easy as pulling them out of a case and turning them on.
- PARTY: If you’ve read this far, you obviously have given some pretty good consideration to what’s out there, but you really only care about one thing… “How’s this going to look at MY event?” These lights give that “Wow” factor that previously had only been available to very high end events and to those with unlimited budgets. Adding live light mixing will turn your uplights from a decor item to the ultimate in event lighting!
Partner with a Lighting Pro
Altared Weddings & Events can tailor these mood-setting lights to any venue and pair it with an array of event lighting options. For more information, contact us to see how these might fit into your wedding plans!