My Wedding Lighting - Gobo & Uplights

Custom lighting at weddings is really popular these days but can be pretty pricey. And watching the tv show, Platinum Weddings on WE had me thinking that it wasn't even a possibility for me because I assummed it would be totally out of our budget. Lighting can easily run thousands of dollars depending on your location and the type of ligthing effects you want to go for. Luckily, something told me to check out a few lighting companies before I ruled it out.

After doing some research, I decided to go with uplights around the room and a custom gobo to have our names shining on wall. We used a company called Backstage (www.backstageva.com) based in Richmond, Va. They were great to work with and very reasonable. They charged $15 per uplight (par can) and the custom gobo was $79. We used about 14 uplights evenly placed around the ballroom. You can have any color light you want. We chose Neon Pink. The gel sheets, which is what they place over the lights to make them illuminate in your desired color, ran about $7 per sheet and can be used for 4 or 5 uplights I think. They also charged for delivery so altogether we spent about $500 on lighting. Not bad, huh?
BLOGGER TIP: One way to save on lighting is to rent the uplights from a company, but set them up yourself or have some family and friends set it up. That way, you save on labor and delivery

The custom gobo is really easy to create and you can have it shining on a wall or dance floor. I created my design in Powerpoint and emailed it to the guy. (By the way, this is the same design we used for the front of our programs. The key is to make sure everything ties together for your wedding. Its all about the details!) Once he received it, he confirmed that it was ok. And that was it!

Here is a pic of our custom gobo:


Another view:


This is what an uplight looks like:


I dont have a picture right now of how the uplights looked in my actual reception but it really created a beautiful ambiance especially for an evening wedding. My hubby was dead set against adding lighting to the budget at first, but after the wedding was over he was glad that he agreed to it. We can't imagine how it would have looked without them! Well worth the money! :)