Weddings
Wedding Lighting & Uplighting in Jacksonville
Uplighting sets the colour of the room in your photographs. Dance-floor lighting decides whether people stay on it. They are different jobs and we do both.
Uplighting: the colour your photographer is working with
Uplights sit on the floor against the walls and wash the room in a colour. Done well, they turn a beige hotel ballroom into a room that looks like it was built for your wedding, and they give your photographer something better to work with than a ceiling full of downlights.
We match the colour to your palette rather than defaulting to the same warm amber at every wedding, and we set the level so the room reads warm in person and clean in photographs. Uplights go in during load-in, get positioned around the room's real furniture layout, and stay static all night — they are architecture, not effects.
Dance-floor lighting: the part that changes during the night
Dinner does not want moving lights. The dance floor does. We keep the room calm and warm through the meal and the toasts, then bring the dance-floor fixtures up when the dancing starts, so there is an actual change in the room when the party begins instead of one setting all evening.
Premium lighting adds moving-head fixtures — the ones that pan, tilt and change colour — aimed at the dance floor rather than at the tables. Used with restraint they make a dance floor feel like an event. Used badly they make a wedding look like a nightclub, which is why an operator matters more than a fixture count.
Why it is the same crew
Lighting and music are the same instrument on a wedding night. When the person running the lights is the person who knows the first dance is next, the room changes on the downbeat instead of eight bars late. Renting uplights from one vendor and a DJ from another is how you end up with neither.
What you can have
- Uplighting around the reception roomColour matched to your palette, positioned to the real floor plan, set before guests arrive.
- Dance-floor lightingComes up when the dancing starts, not during dinner.
- Moving-head fixturesPan, tilt and colour change aimed at the floor. Part of premium lighting.
- A first-dance lookThe room dropped down and the couple lit, cued off the music.
- Cake and head-table accentSo the two things everyone photographs are actually lit.
- Full install and strikeIn during load-in, out after the last guest. No cables where people walk.
Lighting people noticed
Sonar did our wedding and it was absolutely perfect!! The music, lighting, special effects and the MC kept the crowd pumped and turned the place into a party! Highly recommend!!
Used for my daughter’s wedding. It was a perfect fit, merging my daughter and son in law’s music and getting the crowd excited and on their feet. The lights and smoke effects added such a special touch to their first dance and throughout the night. Definitely recommend!!
I had the pleasure of working alongside Chris (mc) and Danley (dj/lighting/effects) for a wedding this fall. They handled the audio for the ceremony, hyped the crowd for introductions, kept the energy elevated on the dancefloor until last call.
Wedding lighting questions
How many uplights does a room need?
It depends on the wall length and how the room is laid out, not on a package number. We look at the floor plan for your venue and quote the count the room actually needs.
Can you match our wedding colours?
Yes. Send us the palette — or a swatch photo — in the planning call and we set the fixtures to it. Deep colours read very differently in person and in photographs, so we will tell you honestly how a given colour will photograph.
Do the lights stay the same all night?
Uplighting does. Dance-floor lighting does not — the room stays calm through dinner and toasts, and the dance-floor fixtures come up when the dancing starts.
Can we have lighting without booking you for DJ?
For weddings we generally do lighting as part of the event rather than as a drop-off rental, because the lighting needs someone running it to the timeline. For non-wedding events, see event lighting.
See what your room could look like
Send us your venue and your colours and we will tell you what the room takes.