Find the right Lighting for your wedding, within your budget
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Lighting is the cheapest thing that changes how a room looks and the most common reason expensive decor photographs badly.
It is also split across vendors in a way nobody explains: some comes with the DJ, some with the decorator, some from the venue, and the gaps are where problems live.
Uplighting is fixtures placed around the perimeter washing the walls with colour. In a plain banquet hall it is the single highest-impact change available for the money, and it is why the same room looks completely different between two weddings.
Count the room's perimeter and ask how many fixtures are included. A large hall lit by eight uplights has eight bright patches and a lot of dark wall.
Cameras see colour casts that eyes forgive. A room washed in deep purple turns skin green, and no amount of editing fully recovers it.
Ask for neutral white light on the stage, the head table and the cake, with colour used on the walls and dance floor. Introduce your lighting supplier to your photographer — this one conversation prevents most of it.
All three, in pieces. DJs typically bring dance-floor lighting and sometimes basic uplighting. Decorators handle stage and feature lighting. Venues supply house lights and occasionally have their own exclusive AV supplier.
Ask each what they cover and write it down. Ask the venue about power limits and whether outside lighting suppliers are permitted — some halls restrict it, and finding out late is expensive.
Lighting is usually quoted inside the decor package rather than separately, and the ranges published there are the more useful reference.
What sets it here: number of fixtures, whether it is a static wash or a programmed design, feature and ceiling work, an on-site technician, and how tight the venue's setup window is.
In a plain banquet hall it is the highest-impact spend per dollar available. It changes the entire look of the room and it photographs well. In a venue with strong architecture or good existing light, the return is smaller.
It depends on the perimeter — fixtures are usually spaced every three to four metres to avoid dark gaps between pools of light. Ask the supplier how many they are quoting and what spacing that gives in your specific room.
Occasionally, in newer venues with dimmable, well-placed house lighting. Most banquet halls have flat overhead light designed for setup, not for an evening. Ask to see the room with the house lights at their evening setting before deciding.