Welcome back to another installment of Real Weddings Magazine’s Partner Profiles!
This week we highlight the team from Got Light, and their Wedding and Social Event Manager, Ashley Hugus! If you haven’t checked out their dramatic lighting work, here’s a great opportunity! Take it away, Ashley!
Meet Got Light Team Member: Ashley Hugus, Wedding and Social Event Manager at Got Light
Ask for Ashley when planning your wedding lighting design and decor! She has delighted hundreds of brides and grooms, and has a binder bursting with sweet thank you notes from our happily married couples. As part of your team, Ashley works closely year-round with Bay Area and Sonoma County top wedding professionals to create spectacular, customized wedding events.
Beware! She asks LOTS of silly questions… “What’s your linen color? Floral colors? Can we see your invitation?” Whether it’s a backyard wedding for 20 or a mega-wedding for 400, our couples receive immaculate personalized care to help create your wedding. With Ashley’s attention to detail, Got Light is known for not just being another vendor making a delivery, but rather rather a team who cares about your guests’ experience as much as you do. Consider it free therapy… That’s why she’s here!
Tell us a little about Got Light: Got Light provides more than just light! Our services include event audio, video, projection art, video mapping, draping, staging, and much more. We consist of passionate designers, producers, cinematographers, engineers, riggers, and everyone in between. Our dedicated team of creative problem solvers has a sick obsession for details and an unyielding addiction to customer service.
When was Got Light established? Established in 2004 by designers Russell Holt and Jon Retsky, Got Light offers over 35 years of combined experience in event design and production.
Jon and Russ’s backgrounds span from more than just the event community. From fine art, photography, and film… to theater, dance, music and architecture… their multi-faceted experience in the arts have brought a fresh vision to the event industry and transformed the way lighting is utilized for events and weddings.
What sets Got Light apart from your competition? With a team filled with artists and designers, we meticulously study every event. We’ll explore different options and ideas specific to your style and venue, all of course while keeping a mindful eye on your overall budget.
We go out of our way to make sure we’re not in your way. Got Light prides ourselves on immaculate attention to detail and obsessive compulsive tactics to hide the junk that makes your event (and your photos) look good! This includes custom wooden housing to cover our lighting hardware in a variety of paint and stains. This replaces a standard uplight color with a beautiful, rustic cover that becomes part of the wedding decor and design.
Our goal is to show off your event, not show off our toys! Our signature style is about how to produce an event with the smallest visible footprint of production nonsense. When we aren’t making art, we are event cosmeticians, finding smarter ways to make you look fantastic!
What inspires the Got Light team? Our experts at Got Light layer in color, texture, kinetic movement, and subtle highlights. We take your event from “lit” to “WOW!”
Lighting completely transforms the entire look and ambiance of your event. It can be subtle or striking, but will always have a profound impact on the overall look of your venue. Illuminated decor, such as chandeliers, mason jars, or pathway lights can also create bold statements for your event with light.
What trend do you see coming for weddings this year? Emerald is the IT color of 2013! We are seeing a lot of rich aqua hues and complimentary tones, such as green and magenta. We have been seeing a lot of yellow with black/grey color combinations recently, as well. The trend of bold color schemes including teals, purples and magentas are definitely on the rise!
For weddings, ivory and blush or monochromatic schemes never go out of style. We do a lot of neutral tones, especially for outdoor weddings. Beautiful venues and a gorgeous landscapes speak for themselves. Our approach at Got Light is to always enhance the venue, never covering up its natural character.
Do you Facebook? Twitter? Pinterest? Google+? If so, what are those page addresses?
Yes! Check us out here:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Got-Light/130630888755
Pinterest http://pinterest.com/gotlight/
Google+ https://plus.google.com/108746058017044759103/posts
Vimeo https://vimeo.com/gotlight
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/got-light-?trk=hb_tab_compy_id_2707220
What advice would you can give to brides and grooms getting married today? We’ll explore different options and ideas specific to your style and venue, all of course while keeping a mindful eye on your overall budget. Got Light’s minimum design packages range from $1000-$1700 depending on the location of your wedding, event hours, and desired design.
In terms of a lighting budget, we at Got Light believe it’s important to always remember two things: timing and power. We use a lot of heavy equipment. When we are hanging decor or lighting in a venue, we are generally the first vendor in and the last vendor out. Other vendors can generally begin their cleanup behind the scenes, but our product stays up and is enjoyed up until the end of the party, so we don’t take anything down until guests have left the event space. So bear with us, but we do need a bit of time for set up and break down. This is important to think about when you are booking your venue block and signing your rental contract.
The other thing to think about is power! We work in dozens of historical buildings around San Francisco and the Bay Area, many of which were not designed with lighting for special events in mind! At Got Light, we are the Bay Area leader in wireless, battery, & LED, paving the way for a greener and more environmentally friendly approach to lighting for the event industry. The labor and power saving opportunities are endless! Remember that if you are having your wedding in an outdoor space with a band, photo booth, lighting, and catering – they will all need somewhere to plug their equipment into, as well!
Here is some great information to help brides and grooms be informed before contacting their lighting designers:
Uplight: Uplights are compact lighting fixtures in varying sizes and wattages (depending on the event space) that are placed on the ground up against the perimeter walls or key architectural features, adding light and color to the walls, ceiling, and providing an ambient indirect glow. Uplights shine up a wall and naturally fill a space with light and color. We consider uplighting to be the primer or “base coat” to lighting, being the first course of action to transform a room with light. For exteriors, uplighting is used on key landscape elements and trees, adding drama and illumination to an outdoor setting. Uplighting can be any color of your choice, preferably a color that ties in with the linens, florals, or overall color palette.
Pin Spot: A pin spot is a sharp, focused light directed at a floral centerpiece, wedding cake, or certain types of decor. Pin spotting not only helps illuminate the room, but can make dining tables pop with light. Pin spots can be white light or they can be colored with a light tinted GEL to help bring out the colors of a floral centerpiece. Pin spots are best for rooms or venues where the pin spot can be mounted or aimed from above the tables. If that’s not an option, pin spots can be mounted to a tree along the perimeter of the room and aim towards the centerpiece or cake at an angle. For large centerpieces, often we will recommend two-sided pin spotting for the best look. We are always happy to advise whether or not pin spotting is appropriate or effective based on your venue and florals.
Wash: Washes in lighting are broad projections of illumination, color, and/or pattern. A wash is sometimes a necessity, not a design element, such as a “band wash”. Or a wash can be colored or patterned to introduce character and design, such as a “ceiling wash”, “wall wash” or “dance wash”. In lighting, a wash merely refers to projection(s) of illumination to either establish visibility or to liven up a space with more illumination, style, or color.
What’s your favorite comment/compliment that one of your clients has given you? “Every penny I paid them was worth it, and honestly, in retrospect, knowing the quality of their work product and commitment to delivering lighting that really takes your breath away, I would pay them even more. How often can you say that about a vendor in the wedding industry?”
Thanks Ashley!
To find out more about Got Light, visit: got-light.com and be sure to check out their social media pages!
Blog post by Real Weddings Magazine’s Editor/Publisher, Wendy Sipple.
Photos courtesy of Got Light.
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