Lighting on Weddingbee PRO

Kate Parker, New Hampshire Vendor: Wedding Planner Website: Kate Parker Weddings About Me: Kate Parker is the owner of Kate Parker Weddings, a wedding planning and floral and event design studio located on the Seacoast of NH. KPW specializes in simple and sophisticated weddings throughout New England and New York and also provides lighting services, paper products, custom out of town welcome baskets and music entertainment. Kate loves to work with as many details as possible- ribbon banding, monograms, favor tags etc to make each wedding unique and fabulous! She lives in Somersworth, NH with her husband Ryan, son Zachary, and chihuahua Lola. Although she doesn't have much free time, Kate loves to travel, read a good book, and entertain for close friends.

Lighting: An Essential Design Element

May 21st, 2009 @ 4:06 pm by Kate Parker @ Kate Parker Weddings

After working on the Cape this past weekend with one of my favorite photographers, Stacey Kane, we were chatting about a few moments in the wedding that we wished I had used some lighting for. The ceremony was under a beautiful Sperry tent at 6 p.m., so although it was still daylight, it was difficult to capture the remaining natural light because we had a “ceiling” over us.

One of my favorite decor elements of the wedding was a life-sized sculpture of the bride and groom's dog, Tiegen. She was the showpiece for the place card table, and unfortunately she was in a very dark part of the cocktail hour tent and wasn't given her full glory. So, after thinking about all of the lighting we've used in the past, from our studio or from hiring our absolute favorite lighting company, SBL Lighting, I thought it would be helpful to show you some images of weddings that used lighting as an important design element, as well as a few shots without lighting so you can see the difference. Enjoy the images!

Images below by Claris Photography

The reception space in the middle of the afternoon.
Claris photo

Lights, Lights, Lights

March 20th, 2009 @ 2:34 pm by Nancy @ Nancy Liu Chin Designs

I believe that Karen Bussen, author of “Simple Stunning Weddings” said it best when she stated, “I consider lighting to be one of the most crucial elements in creating atmosphere.” I could not agree more.

When you work on a wedding for months, when your floral designs need to be stunning, when hours are spent pouring over minute details, the one thing that often disappoints brides and floral designers are images of wedding decor bathed in poor lighting or over saturated flash photography.

Now, before you blame those poor photographers, one must understand that they are hardly to blame. When a large ballroom, grand hall, or intimate restaurant does not have adequate lighting, the photographers have to use their flash to capture the details. Even for digital photographers, with low lighting, these details are very difficult to photograph (just ask your photographer!). And frankly, it is a real shame. When I see my couple spending huge amounts of their overall budget on the details, I ask myself why is lighting treated like an afterthought? Of course if your wedding is outdoors in the daytime, you may not have these concerns. However, most of the clients that I work with do have these concerns so I've put together some suggestions.

My advice:

1) Revisit your venue during the time of day when you will hosting your reception.
Many couples see their space during daylight but if the event itself is in the evening then it is best to go during the appropriate time especially if a room has windows. Bright light during the daytime may look beautiful and stunning but for an evening event, the lighting is not bright and sunny.