Saturday, June 1, 2013

To Light or Not to Light?

We may be jumping ahead a bit in the planning process here, but as our wedding day gets closer (less than 150 days now!), new decisions seem to crop up constantly. Sure, we’ve got the big decisions down – but there are a lot of things we can still do to change the overall look and feel of the wedding. At the same time, we are also trying to figure out what else will fit within our budget. The real issue is: what is worth the splurge, and what can we skip? Right now, the two biggest things up for discussion in our house are a photo booth and uplighting.

A photo booth is something I’m definitely surprised to be considering. At first, I honestly thought it was kind of pointless – sure, it’s fun to have one, but it’s certainly not a necessity! And at the price most photo booth rentals go for, it seemed like an unnecessary expense – one that we could skip. But as time goes on and I keep reading about more and more weddings that have them, I have found nothing but rave reviews. It seems like photo booths are something that everyone can enjoy, and it would certainly keep our guests busy during cocktail hour!


Besides, we’d have all sorts of fun pictures to remember our wedding by – it could even be another guest book of sorts!


Luckily, our photographer offers a photo booth package for a pretty good price – we just have to get some more details from her before we can decide on whether it’s worth it to us.

The other thing we’ve been talking a lot about lately is uplighting. Admittedly, it wasn’t even something that was on my radar at first – but now that we’re in the middle of the planning process, it seems like it’s everywhere!


I’m ashamed to admit that I first seriously considered uplighting after watching an episode of Four Weddings. Usually, that show makes me depressed – there’s nothing like watching a bunch of people tear apart each other’s weddings to make you second-guess all of your decisions. But this time, I happened to notice how beautiful one of the reception spaces looked – and it was definitely the uplighting that made the entire look.


Brendan and I don’t really want anything too dramatic – no saturated colors or nightclub feel. But because our venue is a country club, and we really want a more rustic feel, we think that the right kind of lighting could bring a cozy atmosphere. We’re thinking soft oranges with a golden tone:

Something like this (source)

The thing is, our venue doesn’t have their own uplighting, and our DJ doesn’t offer it, either. There is definitely some research required here – if we’re going to have it, we need to find an option that won’t break the budget!


What do you think – are the photo booth and uplighting worthwhile expenses for a wedding? Any positive or negative experiences to share?

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