A Simple Guide to Lighting--or--Why Have I Never Heard of This Before?

The answer is simple and it's also complex! The simple answer is that just a few years ago, uplighting and pinspotting just weren't available for any but the most expensive celebrity weddings!
An "uplight" is simply a lighting fixture that sits on the floor close to the wall, that shines up the wall in a fairly tight pattern. Uplights are usually placed strategically around a room to create a backdrop of lighting. Uplighting takes boring walls and turns them into decorative highlights that compliment your color scheme.
Just a couple of years ago, the lighting industry came out with LED uplighting fixtures. Because the LED's stay cool, they eliminate a lot of the risks associated with supplementary lighting. They also use a miniscule amount of electricity, and the LED uplighting doesn't require gels to make the colors (gels are very expensive and the colors possible were limited). These fixtures have little LED bulbs in red, blue and green (and sometimes amber, like the ones we have for our ballroom, which were more expensive, but greatly expand the possibilities of colors). The number of colors possible is infinite! Each fixture has a digital display for setting the color. So if you want the same color all the way around the room, we set all the lights to the same numbers. Then, to add to the fun, if you want to be able to change the colors of the lights, all at the same time, we connect them all together with cables and a DMX controller. This gives you the option of having the lights start out light blue, then fade to pale green, then fade again a few minutes later to a soft pink. Whatever you want, color wise, is possible, and all the lights change at the same time. This is called "intelligent lighting" .
I vividly remember Colin Cowie's program at the Association of Bridal Consultants Annual Conference in New Orleans in 1999. Nobody was allowed into the room until everything was set. When we walked in, there was dynamic music playing, the house lights were turned down, and there were uplights all the way around the room. It was breathtaking! Onstage there were 5 tables, decked out to the nines with awesome centerpieces, china, glassware and silver. Most of us had never seen anything like it before! Every attendee in the room was speechless!! He showed us how beautiful tables could be with pinspots on the centerpieces. In his delightful South African accent he told us "I would NEVER do a wedding without uplighting and pinspots on the tables! I put far too much effort in the centerpieces to have them be lost in the dark!"
Pin spots are little spot lights that are aimed at something, usually your table centerpieces, to highlight them and make them "pop". Pin spots can also be used to highlight a candy table, a gift table, a cake table, even the centerpiece on the head table. Pin spots make the difference between your guests actually seeing the centerpieces and having them blend into the overall low light situation in the room. When your guests walk into the room with pin spots on the tables, their eyes are instantly drawn to your stunning centerpieces!
Have you ever noticed how art museums either have spots in the ceilings that shine on paintings, or they might have a light fixture that actually attaches to the picture frame and illuminates the painting? Lighting is everything folks. It's the subtle difference between mediocre and spectacular.
Check out the post from last week of Kristin and Tony's wedding. Notice the uplighting (in fuchsia to match their wedding colors!) and pinspotting on their gorgeous centerpieces. You can bet that their guests are going to vividly remember the moment that they walked into the room! The WOW effect was huge!
Take a look at these two photos.

One is pinspotted, one is not, can you tell which is which? The second picture required flash because of the low lighting, it lost depth, and drama. Pinspots enable your photographer to get some amazing table shots! Think about it. Even a rose in a rose bowl is going to look spectacular if it is TREATED like it's special.

Come see us, and we'll talk about what we can do to create a lighting atmosphere for your wedding that is going to give it real "pow"! We have been working hard for the last several months getting things in place to offer you some fabulous options at reasonable prices.

Let's make it happen!!!

Same Day Edit--Kelly and Tom

While we are on the subject of wedding videos, here is another video that we thought was really impressive. This is by Memories Custom Videographers in Highland. This is what they call a "same day edit" clip. It was put together in a very short amount of time and shown to the guests at the reception before dinner. Granted, if you have your wedding and reception at the same location this might not be something you really need, simply because everyone is usually there for the ceremony, however if you have a ceremony at another location earlier in the day, where a lot of the guests at the reception haven't been in attendance for the ceremony, this would be a really nice touch! I really love how it is put together. It's short but beautifully done.
Of course, they received a full length video as well, and probably a "highlights" version too. Highlights are nice for showing to your friends that might not want to sit through a 2 hour presentation of your wedding. A 10 or 15 minute highlights video works great for giving them the high points of the day without boring them to tears or taking up the entire evening. It's kind of like home movies (for those of you that remember those! haha! I guess maybe home videos would be more appropo!) if you aren't in it, it isn't nearly as fascinating. Nevertheless, friends love to see the shorter version, and having one is awesome.
At the very least, consider having raw footage done at your wedding and reception. This can usually be done at a reasonable cost, and then if/when you want to have it edited into a more useable form, you have it. Once the day is over, you can't go back and get it; it's gone.

Here's their video:

Barns Wedding, Same Day Edit, Aberdeen Manor, Valpo, Indiana from Jeff Dildine on Vimeo.

New Year's Eve--Beautiful!!

What a wonderful day for an anniversary! Every year afterward the whole world would celebrate with you! Jacqueline and Jon certainly had a fabulous time at their reception! Here is the link her photographer sent to me with pictures of their event.

http://blog.jmstudios.com/

Take a look at how beautiful the ceiling and the "bliss lights" looked over the dance floor! This was a last minute decision that Jacqueline made. She told me later in the evening how happy she was that they had decided to do it. It really does make the dance floor magical! Megan and I found the bliss lights last fall at a conference. Back when Jim and I built the original building in 1998, I wanted to figure out a way to put a navy blue dome over the dance floor with fiberoptic "stars" to twinkle above it. Needless to say, that idea got just a little too pricy, and it never happened. So when we found these lights--well--there it was! My starlit ceiling!! The lights in combination with the "candles and crystals" ceiling decor looks absolutely amazing!

Think about doing something that will add a "WOW" factor to your reception. You know what they say about first impressions! When your guests walk into the room and are instantly wowed by the decor, the ambiance, the lighting, it's an impression that stays with them forever! It's the first thing that comes to mind when people ask them later "how was the wedding?" They instantly have that initial mental image of your reception, and that "WOW" moment as they entered the room. Years from now, your guests will still be talking about how beautiful your reception was!

Take a peek at Jacqueline and Jon's photos from their reception--beautiful!!! WOW!!!

Kristin and Tony’s Awesome Short Takes Video!

Granted, I am a bit prejudiced when it comes to winter weddings. Our anniversary is December 14th, so I have personal experience with this and I have practiced what I preach! Haha! I love the coziness, the warmth of a burning fire and the “fuzzy blanket feel” of tons of candles and soft lights. But I have to tell you, our wedding at Aberdeen Manor on December 30th was over the top! Kristin sent me the link for her "highlights" video this morning, and honestly, I am blown away!!


Kristin & Anthony Wedding Trailer from Studio This Is - Jason Monroe on Vimeo.

AWESOME!!!! They had Studio This Is for their video and photos. Jeremy Bustos, the owner, is an incredibly talented photographer. He has a great eye for the unique.

Did you see their ring dog, Wilma, dragging the little flower girl to the front of the chapel? Kristin and Tony never would have seen this without the video! It was the talk of the ceremony, SOOO cute, but because Tony hadn't come out from the side door yet, and Kristin was at the "end of the line" , they would have missed it! There are so many moments during your wedding day like this. So many things that fly by, or that occur when you can't see them. Isn't it wonderful that it can be preserved and saved for you to see later, over and over if you want to? The other thing about it is the REALITY of it. A still picture of this happening would be cute, but it could never convey how funny it was, not in the same way that the video does anyway. Hearing the guests laughing, seeing how the flower girl stumbles down the aisle behind Wilma, the surprised look on her face, and the funny expressions, all of these things would be missed in a still photo.

Here is what Kristin told me about her video in a note she sent me yesterday: “Boy, I gotta tell you, I almost didn't do video either and a few weeks before the wedding I changed my mind and I'm SOOOO glad I did! You're so right, I would have completely missed those moments like Wilma and the flower girl plowing down the isle! I just love it!”

And this is just over the highlights! I can hardly wait to hear what she has to say when she gets the full video back!

While you are looking at this, notice the up lighting around the ballroom, and the “pin spotting” on all the tables—awesome!!!

We’ll talk more about lighting options!!!

Photos and Video - Not the Same Animal

When it comes to YOUR wedding, don't make the very common mistake of looking at photography and videography as the same thing; as an either/or option. BOTH photos and video have their own special uses and purposes. They are totally different, other than the fact that they both involve images.

I attended a seminar on videography a couple years ago, and they talked about a study that was done where they asked couples what the five most important services for their wedding were. BEFORE the wedding, video was named in only about 25% of the answers. But AFTER the wedding it was named in nearly 80% of the answers! Obviously there was a lot of people that wished they had gotten a video for their wedding!

It flies by in a nanosecond. Just as you wouldn't think of having your wedding without someone to take still photos, a video should be just as high on your priority list. If you can't afford to go with a fully edited, high tech video, at least have a professional take raw video, so that later on you can pay the additional to have it edited into something beautiful. If you don't have the video, you can't do it, ever.

Incidentally, did you know that an average wedding video requires about 40 to 50 hours of editing time? The price you pay for having someone take a video of your wedding is not just for the few hours that they are at your wedding. The largest portion of the cost is those hours and hours of editing time! If a video costs $1500, that works out to about 30 dollars an hour. Looks a lot more reasonable, doesn't it? In addition, professional videographers can easily have 30,000 to 50,000 dollars tied up in their equipment. Professional high definition cameras that are able to take high quality video in low light situations (and who wants a searchlight on constantly during their reception?) are really expensive, and good videographers are constantly having to update and upgrade their equipment. Looks like an even better bargain, doesn't it?

Because of the improvements in equipment, video doesn't have to be any more intrusive than still pictures. Just as with your photographer, people notice them at the very beginning, and then they kind of fade into the woodwork as people get used to them being there. After 5 minutes, they don't notice the photographer OR the videographer.

We have some awesome videographers on our Faves List. I hope you will really give video serious consideration when it comes to planning your wedding!

HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE RESCHEDULED

Well Mother Nature certainly dropped one on us this time!!! We have decided that because of the road closings, drifts, and additional snow that is forecasted, that we will RESCHEDULE our HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE for WEDNESDAY THE 15TH FROM 5:30 TO 8:30.
We have lots of wonderful food in the cooler ready to go, and hope that those of you who had planned on attending today will be able to make it on Wednesday. The weather is supposed to be much better then!
All I can say is, I'm glad it's Monday and not Saturday!! I would much rather have OUR party snowed out, rather than someone's wedding. It's just Indiana though, we have things happen all year around--floods, tornadoes, snow, you name it! It makes Hawaii look very attractive sometimes.
Hope to see everyone on Wednesday for the party!

To Letterpress or not to Letterpress!

So I am looking for some opinions. I love letterpress invitations, but they are a little more expensive than thermography. I'm not sure if anyone knows what they are in this area...

I found a neat company that does letterpress that aren't horrendously expensive, like most. If you have a minute, check out their website, which has pictures of all of the invitations they offer, and let me know whether you think this would be a good addition to our invitations library or not. The pricing is all on their website as well, so you can also let me know if you think they are gorgeous but just too expensive. Keep in mind that the pricing is for the invitation and envelope as well as the response and envelope--it's for the set rather than just the invitation.
Whatever your opinion is, I am interested! The website is www.letterpresslove.com
Feel free to comment, or send me your opinion privately to denna@aberdeenmanor.com whichever you are more comfortable with.
Looking forward to hearing from all of you!