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I think you almost have enough as it is. We bought a few strings of small Martha Stewart white lanterns to string through the middle of the tent, and we aren't even having perimeter lightbulbs in ours. Our tent is part of our dining area, with dancing and food in a separate room, so we are also using big pillar candles in glass hurricanes on the tables. I don't know about you, but soft lighting under a tent at an outdoor wedding is just so dreamy to me :-)
Lanterns are a great idea. Something also to consider is West Coast Brides's suggestion of hurricanes with pillar candles. I saw this at an outdoor wedding I went to last August and it gave the tent a really romantic glow. I don;t know what your colors are, but I have seen some amazing stained glass hurricanes at Target for about $10-$12. I would even use some smaller votives if you have a long table.
Best of luck with your dream wedding!!
Thanks...
I just posted about cheap votives I foudn if you need it you should look at it I think its crudge.com but I really just posted it so it should be there...
Its just gonna be for dancing though so there's not a lot of tables. There may be 3 cocktail tables under the tent....they will have votives...
My plan for my centerpieces was the pillar candles and hurricane globes...that stuff gets crazy expensive though! I had no idea!
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I agree that lanterns are a great way to light up a tent; also having candles (real or battery operated) in the centerpieces will help to light the tent. Good luck :)
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I love what the lanterns look like especially when they're are a ton of them...I was quoted $2500 to do that though. Much too expensive.
I think you should do lanterns with little leds that you can get at radio shack, or go to Do what Mrs. Lemon did with candles, she also got them at CUDGE.NET not crudge. and she got her hurricanes-actually drinking cups from ikea. I am doing the same thing thats why I also recommend! :) Tents look amazing with lanterns though, I think it was Mrs. Tiramisu or that used leds with lanterns in her tent. Both are great ideas! Good Luck!!
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@emilybrooke $2500 for paper lanterns?! That's ridiculous. I wonder what vendor told you that. You can buy the lanterns yourself for $2-$4 a piece and then find a willing friend or family member to string them up for you. It's probably going to cost me about $100-200 to have the lanterns.
Our entire wedding is going to be held outside. During the day you dont really need any lighting at all-- you have the sun. The perimeter lighting you're already having will be plenty. When the sun goes down you bascially need enough light for mood lighting.
I'm getting married August 1st in upstate NY and it doesnt get dark until around 9pm. We're not having LEDs in the lanterns, we're just having them to add color and ambiance. We will have white string lights around the perimeter of the tents and we're having candle centerpieces on the tables. We're also going to have some citronella torches around the tents that we'll light once the sun starts to go down.
We are having twinkle lights wrapped in tulle draped on the ceiling of the tent. Also doing hanging lanterns and lots of candles!
Hi emilybrooke!
We used paper lanterns with LEDs to light our tent and managed to do-it-ourselves for about $200. We also used perimeter lighting and together with the lanterns we had more than enough light.
I posted about the process here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/04/03/if-only-i-had-majored-in-event-lighting-instead-of-biology/
Here we are in progress with making the LEDs and testing them out: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/06/17/lighting-lanterns-with-led-throwies/
I was super worried about the whole process and about the cost, but it ended up working out great. Let me know if you have any more questions!
In the picture here we have around 100 lanterns in a 40x120 tent just so you can get an idea :)
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I am thinking of doing a gobo light projected on the ceiling with a leaf or flower pattern. I like the look of lanterns, but was told that installation could be expensive.
Hi Tiramisu - I'm following your LED instructions for lighting (I hope I bought the right ones!) and am planning to do ~100 lanterns in our 40x80 tent. I have a couple of questions that I'm hoping you can answer:
- how did you hang your paper lanterns?
- how did you prep the lanterns for hanging? We'll be doing this ourselves so I want to be able to do as much in advance as possible!
- what size lanterns are you using in the photo, above?
- did you light all of the lanterns and when?
- do you have any photos of the lanterns at night?
- anything you would have done differently, in hindsight?
Any other tips for us? Thanks for your help!
Hi runrunrun!
Lots of questions! I am working on a post that will hopefully answer all of these in more detail for you, look for it in the next 2 weeks.
-We used fishing line to hang the lanterns from the center poles of the tent out to the side poles and also between the center poles.
-We attached the throwies to the metal frame of the lantern (with fishing line also) ahead of time and then put the frames into the lanterns on the day before the wedding.
-What you see in that photo are 100 14" lanterns and 30 lanterns ranging in size from 8"-16".
-We lit all of the lanterns the Friday morning before our Saturday evening wedding.
-The lanterns didn't photograph very well at night but I'm searching through some of our guest photos to try to find one that shows how much they glowed.
-The throwies were great but were pretty time consuming to assemble. Mr. Tiramisu did most of them at the last minute, so I would have just started earlier and tried to do a few at a time (but who am I kidding I'm such a procrastinator!).
I hope that helps you! Sometimes I don't notice board posts so if you have a specific question you can always PM or email me. Good luck!
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One more thing that's ending up costing a fortune and pushing my wedding budget out of control because, well, I didnt' budget for it.
What are you doing for lighting in your tent and what is it costing you?
Or any other ideas would be helpful.
Specifics for our event. It's June 26th in CT...close to the longest day of the year so hopefully lots of light later...They have some house lighting in the tent...a string of large bulbs that go aroudn the perimiter.
We are considering a cluster of Japanese lanterns in the middle of the tent or white mini lights on the framing of the tent and through the middle. The tent is only being used for dancing, bar and dj so lots of light isn't needed. But I do want some.
What should I do?