We know making decisions in your wedding planning process isn't always easy, so that's why us DJ's at Champagne Toast want to be your guide! When you're looking for a DJ service, one of the choices that might be presented to you is: UPLIGHTING.
Uplighting: To Be, or Not to Be?
What is really uplighting, and why would anyone want it?
Have you ever walked into a dimly lit room with candles, or a room with one of those fancy Himalayan salt lamps lit up? Well a room with uplighting is kind of like that. Uplighting isn’t supposed to over-power a room with crazy colors, but it’s supposed to create some smooth, soft hues of color that will change the general ambiance of what could be a normally dull-looking room. Or, if your reception room has elegant design features, the uplighting will accentuate that design or architecture, making it aesthetically pleasing.
The LED units we use for uplighting are the most modern lights. They’re LED, so they don’t get hot, which is safe for the kiddos. They’re all battery operated and wireless, so no ugly cords. We control the units with a remote. The batteries last well beyond dancing all night long!
What Uplighting is not...
Uplighting is accomplished by placing multiple LED lights on the floors of a room. Some people confuse the flashy “dance lighting” as uplighting, but that’s kind of a different thing. Think of uplighting as like a “base” color to your reception room vibe.
If your DJ just places a couple LED lights by the DJ station, we don’t consider that uplighting, because it’s not lighting up the room! Some of our vendor friends we know have worked with DJ’s that will just add two lights by the DJ’s station/table. We don’t think that’s ideal because it actually draws a lot of attention to the DJ during the reception. After all, the wedding party is about YOU, not about the DJ. We know that DJ’s make the party, with sound and lights (good lights!) but in reality uplighting should not draw attention to your DJ, for cryin’ out loud!
Photo courtesy of Trailing Twine Photography
Our Process with Uplighting
We approach uplighting like this:
- Tell us if you want uplighting!
- Choose the color: if you have a certain color you want to use, such as a wedding color, we can stick with that. If you’re not sure, we can also make a note to set our uplighting units to change colors at any pace throughout the night!
- We arrive to your venue early to meet the venue coordinators, setup, get situated. We usually set up at least 12 around a room, and sometimes even up to 20 lights. It just depends on the room. For huge ballrooms, we might set up more than 20 at an additional cost.
Still not sure about uplighting?
If you’re still not sure about doing uplighting, feel free to call us! Sometimes couples will ask a photographer, but we suggest it’s better to just try and find some photos of wedding receptions at your venue and see if you like it. If you love personality, and want to set a mood, then uplighting is great. Caveat–some photographers don’t like uplighting. It’s because they don’t know how to take good photos of people when there’s uplighting causing a color cast on skin tones.
Ultimately the decision is up to you– if you love a color glow, maybe a cool blue glow in a room (hey, blue is a comforting color!), or maybe you know more about the science of colors & how it impacts mood & perception….then it doesn’t hurt to add on uplighting to your DJ package!
And if you don’t get uplighting, it’s not a huge deal breaker or party pooper…because the party is you!