We married in July on my grandparents property in Aptos, California (in Santa Cruz). Since we had the space to do an “at home” wedding… we leaped at the chance. My parents married on the same property 24 years prior.
Here are my tips for lighting an outdoor at home wedding.
Make sure you test out the lighting a couple days prior for the following reasons:
- some lights can only be strung together so many times without the whole strand getting dim. Make sure to string them together before hand so you know how many can be strung together.
- if you are running the electrical from a home… make sure to to run the lights before because your house may not provide enough electricity from one outlet.
- make sure you have enough extension cords (extra is helpful in case of an emergency).
- don’t use small bulb Christmas lights… I say this because we rented both and wasted money on the Christmas lights. Although Christmas lights can be strung together the connection looks tacky. Unless you find a safe way to hide the connection… I wouldn’t do it. Too much work.
- the lights that we got from the rental store were not able to be connected together (no male and female ends) BE SURE TO CHECK WITH YOUR RENTAL COMPANY BEFORE HAND!
- If you are stringing the lights on poles in the ground…. make sure the poles are deep enough. You have to pull the lights pretty snug so there is not too much “droop”. You don’t want your guest ducking under lights, and you don’t want the poles falling down. We used 4×4 redwood posts dug in a couple of feet. We did this months in advance.
I cant express this enough… GET THE LIGHTS EARLY… set them up days in advance.
Good luck!
Thank you for Jor.Dan Photography in Santa Cruz, California for this picture.
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