Lighting... check!

After much research, blood, sweat and tears we finally found our lighting vendor! We went back and forth about budgeting lighting into our wedding, but it is something that is definitely important to the both of us and we feel that our space really needs it to achieve the "mood" that we want.

Most importantly, we both really want the italian-style, bumble-bee lights strung up across the guest tables and this is not something we can do ourselves. When we decided to have an outdoor reception, we knew that getting this lighting would be a priority, even over flowers. King Happyberry and I both love this look but it can be quite costly. I also want some pink uplighting on the trees and columns surrounding the shallow pool in the courtyard and maybe an image on the dancefloor.

The first places we looked at were quoting us close to 1/3 of our whole wedding budget for all this and a little more! Not gonna happen! After many inquiries, we finally called a lighting company that our venue recommended to us (should have asked them form the beginning!) - The Lighter Side.

After speaking with the director of the Lighter Side on the phone, I had a REALLY good feeling about them. He seemed so honest and straightforward and said, "we are in the business of staying in business." I love that. Basically, he said that if our needs changed closer to the wedding date, he wouldn't charge us to make any of those changes and would help us get the look we want at a price that was reasonable. Talk about reasonable - their quote came out to less than 1/4 of the previous quotes and since I know they have experience working at our venue, I feel completely safe.

Here are some examples of what we want our space to look like and some work they have done in the past.

These two images are of our actual venue site. We will probably not have pinspot lighting on the tables since we plan to have lighting across the tops, as shown below. But I love the patterned lighting on the dance floor.

Examples of bumbleebee lighting by the Lighter Side


Example of a wedding at our venue, lit by the Lighter Side. We will be having our reception in this outdoor space, minus the tent.

I am so excited to see what they will do for our wedding day and extremely happy that they have a green initiative promise! ;)