Finding Your Light – As well as now being a blogger and videographer I’ve spent most of my life working backstage in theatres and on events as a lighting and sound designer and technician. Although theatre had always been my primary passion I’ve lit countless concerts, conferences, live events and weddings, and have particularly spent a lot of time using lighting, sound and scenic elements to transform empty venues such as village halls, empty hotel suites and marquees into exciting looking venues. So one of the things that I always find a little disappointing is when I come across poorly lit wedding venues and particularly dance floors lacking in the right atmospheric lighting.
I think this mostly stems from bands, DJ’s and occasionally even the venues themselves telling couples that they will bring some lights with them for the dancing. They are of course true to their word, but what they are generally talking about is a few cheap disco lights that do create a few effects and help to create a bit more of a party atmosphere, but seldom do they provide anything like sufficient lighting to light the dance floor area itself properly. The result sadly tends to be a very dark room with a few poor quality beat-detecting lighting effects blasting everyone in the eyes. This is often particularly bad when the venue doesn’t have the ability to separate the lighting in different areas of the room, meaning that all the lights in the entire room often have to be turned off and leaving those who don’t fancy a dance sitting in almost complete darkness.
Lighting is something that we rarely really consider, yet it has a huge influence on mood and ambience. Imagine trying to have a romantic meal under bright fluorescent office-style lights and you’ll get the picture, and the type of lighting you use at a wedding reception can be equally as important in setting the tone. Recently I was at a wedding where the lighting actually almost caused several huge arguments through the night as poorly thought-out lighting provided by the DJ left the room either in almost complete darkness save for a dark blue glow coming from uplighters placed around the wall killing all chance of the guests having a nice conversation, or incredibly bright fluorescent lights from above killing the chances of anyone wanting to strut their stuff in public out on the dance floor. The room lights must have been turned on and off 50 times through the evening and the groom looked ready to kill someone.
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A very simple and low-cost but effective bit of dance-floor lighting with the lights circling the dancefloor providing the right level of ambient light with additional disco lights helping to create a more “disco” mood
Another classic example is in marquees where often there is a separate area for the dance floor, sometimes with the roof covered by a ‘starcloth’ – a black cloth with what are effectively fairy-lights sewn into it to create a starry night effect. This looks fantastic, but it’s important to remember that the starcloth is only for effect, not to provide actual light, and that the thick black wool surge cloth used in marquee starcloths will block out any other light. This means that if there is no other lighting from above and you’re only relying on a few disco lights from the front the dance floor may actually be much too dark to really create the right ambience.
It’s important to remember that DJ’s, bands and venues are very rarely lighting experts and that in probably the majority of cases the equipment they provide is likely to be at the bottom end of the market and purchased for price rather than practicality. Things like laser effects sound extremely fancy, but in reality they would almost never be used professionally except perhaps in the form of really top-end products used for the likes of Pink Floyd concerts! They emit almost zero useful light and often look terrible in the wedding photos. Though they can have their place as an extra effect which can even sometimes look quite nice with some smoke, they should not be your primary source of light.
There is an alternative though: hiring a professional lighting company to create something really atmospheric for you. If you’re hiring a marquee this is a particularly good idea as marquees provide plenty of natural hanging points and really provide a great platform for the space to be completely transformed in the evening by lighting up that white canvas with splashed of colour, perhaps even matching your wedding theme colours. Marquee companies often work closely with lighting and sound companies already as these companies also often look after portable power generators and install all of the catering and general marquee power, so having them set up the lighting as well is not a great stretch for them.
The choice of whether to hire a professional lighting company is just the same as whether to hire a professional makeup artist or professional florist – an amateur can certainly do something that might just about do the job but a professional can create something really spectacular that completely transforms the space. They can ensure that the mood is right both on the dancefloor and in the chill out areas, can help to use the lighting to enhance your colour themes and can use the lighting properly to really get the party started. They will ensure everything has the right level of light (also helping your photographer and videographer to get great imagery without having to resort to firing flash or camera mounted lights in your eyes) and use higher quality, classy effects to enhance the mood and atmosphere. Most lighting companies also handle sound as well and are usually much better equipped than DJ’s and bands to create a great sounding sound system which can usually be included in a package deal (you’d be amazed how few bands and DJ’s actually know anything at all about sound systems and how to mix sound properly) and can also provide cool effects like confetti explosions across the dancefloor for your first dance and even provide TV Screens or projectors to make sure everyone can see the action!
But if your budget can’t stretch to hiring a professional company, then just make sure that you can provide enough ambient light around the room to be able to to create that all important ambience, even if it’s just from being able to turn off the lighting in specific areas of the room or making sure there is some general static lighting over the dance floor as well as those flashy disco effects – you’d be amazed at the difference it can make.
