LEFT: Lighting by Ormonde Productions

Lighting up the Night

"Lighting adds a theatrical element," explains David Smith, owner of Show Pro, a highly regarded North Hollywood lighting company. "It emphasizes the drama of the moment; it amplifies the beauty and hides any less than appealing elements. Lighting makes it larger than life."

Jim Block, a leading Hollywood lighting designer, notes "Simple elements can be really impactful."

To avoid the look of a film set, interior lighting equipment should be concealed behind veils of cloth or at least painted to blend into walls. Light is then filtered through and bounced off light-colored fabrics creating soft glowing effects. Bouncing off walls and scenic elements like tables and flowers or architectural elements like tent tops, arches or columns, it defines spaces. Smith laments that when rooms are stark with only dark walls and lighting has only people and floors to project onto, it's like a painter without a canvas.

It can also be unpleasant for guests. "There's nothing worse than sitting there with a light on your face all night long," Block warns.

Lighting can add color to create moods, brighten the bride's dress or enhance skin tones. Red tones are flattering to most skin colors although older couples may prefer pinks. Lavenders and pinks cool rooms while ambers, golds, oranges and chocolates warm them up.

For outdoor weddings, heavily distressed chandeliers dripping with crystal are hung from trees or above tables within tents, coming down at differing heights to create "A Midsummer Night's Dream" jeweled glow. Helen Hunt of "Mad About You" used "yard-sale" lamps of multiple heights clustered on buffets for her wedding at home. Michelle Pfeiffer added twinkle lights to frame a tent. Color can be added by replacing the light bulbs in any chandelier or light cluster with bulbs painted in shades of red, orange or brown. Plexiglas boxes in brightly colored geometric shapes can substitute for chandeliers.

Modern gels and digital computer-generated color can exactly recreate any shade or color saturation level. Computers allow lighting experts to build a digital rendering of a setting. They can hang a "virtual" lighting system, save it to a computer disc and send to the bride by e-mail to review in advance. Digital technology allows multiple effects to be created quickly. "Intelligent" lights can follow the couple's movements, change to the beat of music or transform a room as dinner gives way to dancing.

Lighting can project stationary or moving abstract or realistic full-color images, initials or greetings of any size onto dance floors, pools of water, walkways, the wedding aisle, tabletops, walls, the side of a building, or even a mountain. A bride might...