Event Lighting and how to light up your wedding, party or event.

Part One: Uplighting or Mood Lighting

Have you ever walked into an event or party that lacked any atmosphere and vibrancy? By adding even some simple uplighting to your event, party or wedding, you instantly create a warm, welcoming feeling. Great lighting compliments the excellent event music, so add both together and you nearly halfway there to creating a memorable time for all.

So often overlooked by many a party host or client, yet by far as an essential ingredient of a party as the DJ. Lighting will transform the dullest of venues into a warm, welcoming wash of colour. For those planning a wedding or party for the first time, when it comes to lighting, the technical terminology and names can appear somewhat daunting. In a series of short blog posts will look to make life a little easier for the uninitiated and break down the jargon, so you'll know what's what.

If you're looking to plan something spectacular like a fashion show (view our fashion show DJS), then a site visit is an excellent place to start to run through your ideas for the venue and party. A site visit is where your lighting designer will attend a meeting at your venue to discuss your lighting ideas.

What is uplighting for weddings?

A question we get asked time and time again! What is uplighting? Not to be confused with dance floor lighting, uplighting is used to transform the whole wedding or party venue with a wash of colour onto the walls and ceiling. From subtle soft tones to vibrant electrics, uplighting is the most cost-effective way to transform any site. Most uplighting used by any reputable lighting company is also wireless, as in it does not need a power supply and runs off of an internal rechargeable battery that will last for the duration of your event. Ours have been left on for 24 hours and are still running bright, so there's not a chance of the lights going out! With wireless uplighting there are also no unsightly wires visible and the uplighting units are placed on the floor safely and discreetly flush with the walls.

For uplighting colours, we tend to mix at least two colours rather than uplighting an entire venue with one colour; I find this makes the room or rooms look too electric and spoils the photos. Colours I see work well together are mauve and amber, red and amber, blue and red, a soft tone of white and amber. The choice is yours, and depending on the event, some colours will work better than others. For weddings, mauve is by far the most used colour for uplighting, but again everyone is different. We recently installed uplighting for an 80s themed party, with some basic online research they client chose blue, yellow, green and red uplighting to create an 80s colour wash around there venue.

Our uplighting units for hire themselves are small at just 25cm high and 20cm square and are available in either a white or black casing. Set up times takes just minutes with the uplighting units fully charged before your wedding or event.

We've added some images here to give you a visual idea of the effect created by uplighting.

If you’re looking for lighting advice for your next event production in London get in contact with Matt Maurice today - or view our event lighting hire in London.