Looking for outdoor wedding lighting ideas?
Welcome to the second post in the series of posts I’m putting out to share our wedding photos with you this month.
In this post I’ll be sharing all of our photos of our wedding lighting to inspire you with outdoor wedding lighting ideas for your own wedding.
Lighting is everything. It’s sets a mood and the mood of our wedding was magical.
Our wedding lighting added so much to the atmosphere of our reception that it was more than worth, as my father put it, “a month of Sundays” to put up.
Again, I can not thank my family enough for making this dream a reality.
When I saw all of the photos of outdoor wedding lighting on Pinterest I had no idea of the work involved to pull it off.
Wrapping string lights around tree after tree. Getting on ladders to wrap hundreds of branches.
It was A LOT of work and it turned out so out of this world beautiful.
Our Wedding Series
Bride And Groom Wedding Photos
Wedding Reception Photos (COMING SOON)
Outdoor Wedding Lighting Tips
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Like I said, I saw all the pictures of what I wanted and had no idea what it would take to pull it off.
If you want to copy this look for your wedding you will need the following:
Time
The time it will take will depend on how many trees you want wrapped.
You don’t want to start too soon and risk damage to the lights before the wedding.
I believe we wrapped lights around 15-20 trees of varying sizes. Then went out into multiple, but not all, branches of those trees.
I recommend starting a month before your wedding.
Help
You need at least two people when it comes to wrapping lights around the bigger trees trunks.
But of course the more people the better.
If this type of outdoor wedding lighting is your dream do not underestimate the work that goes into this.
Lights
I wish I could tell you how many lights we used but with all that went into this wedding those details are lost.
One tips that is very important is the type of lights you buy.
Some lights will give off a warmer yellow glow and others a cooler blue glow.
Whichever you pick make sure to stick with the same because they do not look good mixed.
Use:
- Brown wire lights for wrapping the trees and branches
- Curtain lights to hang from the branches
- White wire lights to decorate the tent
- Mercury glass jars and tea light candles with timers
- Brown outdoor extension cords
- Outdoor power strips because you can only plug in so many string lights together.
- Curtain lights for head table backdrop
Ladders
We used ladders to get as high as we could into the trees. The higher you can get the better they look.
Adhesive
You need to be able to adhere the lights. They will fall over time so wrapping them alone won’t be enough.
We used a staple gun (careful not to pierce the wire) to staple the lights to the trunk of the tree and one staple at the end of the string of lights on the branches.
In the tent we used clear zip ties.
Outdoor Wedding Tent Lighting
For the tent lighting my family strung string lights accompanied with fabric tulle.
My incredible Father handmade three chandeliers. He had to bend his own metal rings, hang them together with white metal chain, and wrap them in icicle lights.
It may have been a lot of work but wow did it all turn out incredible.
You can say I was married in a tent but all I remember was a castle.
Theres my Dad ☺️
He put so much work into those chandeliers and absolutely blew me away.
They were the perfect lighting for our father daughter dance and my first dance with my husband and daughter below.
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
The Cinema Lighting
At the venue there was this perfect little open area surrounded by trees where we had a straw couch and a screen playing a slideshow of photos.
Above that area was maybe my favorite lighting of the whole wedding.
My mother, the ultimate wedding planner, found these magical mercury glass hanging jar lights.
She came across them at a dollar store, of all places.
But they only had a few.
To give you a little insight on how amazing my mother is. This crazy lady went to every chain of this dollar store within our area and bought them all out of these lights.
We hung them from horizontal wires at different heights tied to the trees so they appeared like they were floating.
This had to be done the day before the wedding at exactly the right time because the tea lights inside were set on timers.
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Again the results were just magical. Our guests could sit on the straw couch under the lights and watch our slideshow.
Outdoor Wedding Tree Lighting
If I’m being completely honest I could not do this again. You could not pay me enough.
If you can, hire a team to string these lights for you.
They look amazing, but they were so much work. I just want to be honest with you if you’re thinking of attempting this.
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Photo Credit: Montgomery Sheridan
Thank you so much for viewing our wedding photos.
I hope you got some outdoor wedding lighting ideas you can use for your wedding.
Don’t forget to give this post a share on Pinterest so you remember these ideas.
Also subscribe to my blog in the sidebar of your screen to get updates of the rest of these wedding posts series sent to your inbox when they are available.
Our Wedding Series
Bride And Groom Wedding Photos
Wedding Reception Photos (COMING SOON)