Enchanted Dream

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How We Created an Enchanted Forest Dream with Wedding Lighting

Let’s be honest, nostalgia might not always be the most pleasant feeling but looking back is often the best way to move forward. It’s true, we set out to create an enchanted forest theme for a wedding recently and it would not have been possible without thinking back to our childhood memories.

But what have memories of childhood got to do with wedding lighting?

Well, wedding lighting is highly important for the atmosphere and overall mood of a reception. You might not know it at the time but even a minor presence or absence of light can change this mood and make everything look and feel different. With this in mind, lighting is hugely influential when it comes to evoking specific emotions and helping guests to feel a certain way.

For example, if we want to foster conversation at a reception, low lights such as candles, dimmed bulbs or twinkles lights can create a feeling of intimacy to nurture discussion among guests. It sounds too good to be true but we are emotional beings and this theory works every time with wedding lighting.

Anyway, the point is, we can use wedding lighting to influence emotions and in the case of our recent  theme, it was much easier to think about an enchanted forest through the eyes of a child. That is to say, an enchanted forest is part of a fairy tale and something we were more likely to imagine as children and for this reason, our memories of childhood were instrumental in terms of creating the theme.

Imagining an Enchanted Forest for the Perfect Wedding Lighting

In case you might be asking yourself, we thought back to many famous books and movies during this process such as Avatar, Narnia and even the Jungle Book. When we remembered the look and feel of these stories, we were able to think about what lighting could be used to recreate that kind of environment and also what type of lighting should be avoided.

You see, lighting is designed for a specific purpose and not every fixture is suitable for every occasion. For example, chandeliers are fantastic for large open areas as they provide a natural centerpiece and plenty of illumination for the room. However, chandeliers are expensive, and they would make absolutely no sense in an enchanted forest. Just so you know, I am only using a chandelier to make a point.

Instead, we worked closely with the florist who managed to accentuate what flowers might look like in an enchanted forest. From this point, we were able to use lighting effects to highlight certain focal points during the afternoon and then set this same lighting to transform the room after dark. Needless to say, we still needed to keep our focus on our beloved couple. After all, there is no enchanted forest without a King and Queen and the bride and groom should always be center stage at a wedding reception.

For this process, we simply used our wedding tracking spot to follow our King and Queen for various highlights including the first dance, cutting the cake and the speeches. As you know, photographers and videographers also rely on lighting so we illuminated subjects and parts of the room so that they were able to get the right shots as and when they were needed.

Wedding lighting is often ignored when couples are making plans and this is a huge mistake, especially when you consider most weddings take place at night. At the same time, we also like to think that good lighting can transform a wedding and turn a memorable day into an unforgettable fairy tale.

Either way, you might not want an enchanted forest or anything nostalgic for that matter, but we always do whatever it takes to create the perfect lighting, for your dream wedding.

Simply Elegant

Minimalism is to do more with less or bring more value out of less. With this particular event, we wanted to incorporate the “minimalist” idea into our design. Know that this show was a community event, the decision to do go minimalist helped us and the organizers stay within budget. I chose specific fixtures and placement of them to maximize the function of each of the fixtures.The setup also needed to be quick and easy as we only had 7 hrs and 3 personnel to accomplish this task. The set-up team did an exceptional job getting all of the equipment ready by sound check, just in time for me to perform final checks and program.

For our console, we used an Elation M-play running Onyx Control Systems software. This little fly pack allows me to go to any size venue and ask for a-laptop sized footprint (which is easy to obtain). The power house or highlight of this rig was our LED Beam fixtures, RGBW Pixel that emit a 5-degree beam at 60W. These LED Beam fixtures also have the ability to rotate Pan and Tilt in continuous 360. In this orientation they performed exquisitely and showed exactly how far minimalism can truly make your show stand out.

We laid the LED Beam fixtures across the stage floor on the upstage edge, which gave us beam effects from behind the artist--creating not only a visual effect for the audience with beams, but a background for the artist as well. I chose to have LED pars light up the existing architecture to highlight their facility. There was no need to throw on a bunch of aerial effects that would drown out the elegant background that the community had worked so hard to construct.

All in all, these LED Beam fixtures really helped me achieve the minimalist look that I was looking for. Our dream is guide any size show toward an amazing look, regardless of budget restraints. No Show Left Behind.