Mrs. Penguin, Sacramento
Age and Occupation: 26, Video & TV Producer/Director/Editor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Doctor of Physical Therapy
Engagement Date: January 29, 2007
Wedding Date: June 7, 2008
Blogging Since: September 14, 2007
Venue: Winery in the Gold Country
About Me: I'm a silly mess of a girl who, above all else in this world, LOVES the Spice Girls. I eat sushi at least 3 times a week, and feel guilty about how much it costs the other 4 days a week. I love designer jeans and cheap accessories. I don't like sweets, but I love the UCLA Bruins!
Paper Lantern Inspiration
March 13th, 2008 @ 9:25 am by Mrs. Penguin
We’re having a tent wedding, so to spice up the blank white canvas above our heads, we’re going to string up some individually lit white paper lanterns. I turned to the internet for some inspiration, and here’s what came up:
ourweddingplus.com
ourweddingplus.com
brides.com
culturalintrigue.com
YUM! Pengy rikes.To recreate my own sky of lights, I ordered 48 white irregular ribbed paper lanterns in 3 different sizes: 12″, 16″ and 20″ from The Paper Lantern Store, all for around $170.
paperlanternstore.com
Rather than space them out throughout the tent, I’m considering clustering them lengthwise through the middle of the tent (creating three tight long “strips” of lit lanterns). 50 lanterns spaced out might look a little “sparse” so adding drama through the middle of the tent might be a more economical way to go. I love this look:
tentwares.com
I’ll light each lantern with individual LED battery powered lights, similar to these below, in white. The advantage of an LED light over a standard bulb is that the lit time is around 12 hours, whereas the lit time for a standard individual bulb is around 5-6 hours:
sivallighting.com
How are you “sprucing up” your blank canvas?
29 Responses to “Paper Lantern Inspiration”
Beautiful! I like the idea of concentrating them through the middle.
We’re getting married outside and there are huge trees all OVER the yard, so we’re stringing ribbons and paper lanterns from them. We’re just renting them from InfuseCreativity.com, though, rather than buying them.
Hi Miss Penguin!
Thanks for using us for your inspiration!
Rhonda
OurWeddingPlus.com/blog
Those are some beautiful photos! The second one reminds me of champagne bubbles.
Can I ask where you bought your LED lights from? I was planning on leaving my lanterns unlit, but now I want to light them!
Be Careful with your venue, make sure they allow for lanterns to be hung as is. It is a state law here in my state that all lanterns need to be fire retardant, which costs ALOT of $. Some rental providers have them already fire x’d so you don’t need to do it yourself. Just make sure its cool with your venue and there aren’t any weird laws like there are here about them.
We’re having a tent wedding and hanging a huge chandelier from my grandfather’s antique collection in the center of the tent. One big element like that can really spruce up the blank space.
Also, spreading out food “stations” around a tent can create visual interest and get people to mingle around a large space.
Thanks for the inspiration photos–they’re great!
I tried floralytes in my lanters and it didn’t seem bright enough. Are you using more than one light per lantern? Maybe I was trying to light up too big of a lantern. I bought similar ones as Pengy at http://www.flowersandsupplies.com $1.75 w/o on off switch - $2.10 w/ on off switch
these are beautiful!! how are you hanging them/ what from
@Rhonda: Hi Rhonda! You do beautiful work!
@bethgraced: Havent bought any yet, although Miss Rojo Oso below says floralytes arent bright enough, so I might go another route…
@MissRojoOso: Thanks so much for your input! I didnt buy any yet…whew! I might go the traditional light route if this is the case with floralytes. 
@cinderella: Were tying fishing wire from opposite ends of the tent, so that the lanterns will appear to “float” in space!
We LOVED the look the lanterns added to our wedding–
We added them to the ceremony, the cocktail area, the outdoor reception, and the indoor dance room…the best way to add color!
check it out:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/EKceremony.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/EKaisle.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/722190884505_0_ALB.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/439591884505_0_ALB.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/678841274505_0_ALB.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/633191884505_0_ALB.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/475770884505_0_ALB.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/359804153505_0_ALB.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/313191884505_0_ALB.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e366/ehuefner/875860274505_0_ALB.jpg
http://www.lunabazaar.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=705
Those have 3 LED lights and illuminate up to a 24 inch lantern, but theyre darn expensive (4.25 each!)
I was going to use those battery powered tea lights and place one in the bottom of each lantern- until I realized the lanterns have holes on the bottom 
So now I have to figure out some way to suspend the lights- but the tealights are fairly cheap and bright, and when I tested one it burned 8+ hours on one battery.
@catieb: why not tie a little fishing wire around the bulb and suspend the tealight from the top of the lantern?
We are making led throwies to hang by fishing line within our lanterns to light them up. They’ll come out to about $0.25 a throwie, and we’ll need about three to light up one lantern (under a dollar, yea!) Here are the instructions if you want to give it a shot:
http://www.instructables.com/id/LED-Throwies/
Keep in mind that you won’t need the magnet, but it would probably be beneficial to add the on/off switch, instructions are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/everythingdigital/sets/72057594069888500/
ambinsb - Awesome… I’m going to radio shack after work to try it out.
@ambinsb: whoa! if those throwie things work, they could save us a ton of money! way to go ambinsb. have you tried it yet? keep us updated!
[…] in one of my posts about paper lanterns from several months ago and posted about it, check out Paper Lantern Inspiration over at Weddingbee.3. Melissa, you made it again. I’m also biased here because Melissa […]
@Miss Tiramisu: I haven’t tried it yet, but plan to this weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes!
@Elisa: Elisa- on a side note, what kind of veil did you wear? it’s very pretty!
thanks!
hmmm….Michelle Miller Couture I think?
Thanks! I was hesitant at first about wearing one all together…but I LOVED it and kept it on all night 
ps- we had to use TWO led lights in the large lanterns to get the lighting effect we wanted- suspended them by fishing wire and they worked GREAT!
I tried it out…check it http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/lighting-paper-lanterns-with-throwies
Thanks ambinsb
[…] Se flere billeder og læs Miss Penguins blog på Weddingbee. […]
[…] Miss Penguin, I knew I wanted lots of paper lanterns to spice up the blank ceiling of our tent. Mr. Tiramisu and […]
@Miss Penguin: Hi, just found this board which is helping to answer EXACTLY the questions I have been having about how to light the hanging lanterns I bought for my reception! The throwies sound like a great economical way to light them, but I’m concerned about the quality of the light. I actually bought one of the premade hanging LED lights (like this one: http://www.lunabazaar.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=941 )to test it out, and it emits a horrible blue-ish “white” light- not the soft yellow glow like in the pictures here (though I do see they make it in a yelllow bulb: http://paperlanternstore.com/siledhabatef1.html )maybe that would be better? Can you tell me what the quality of the light of the Throwies is, or if anyone has found any premade LED light that has a *warm* white light? (Or did you use a yellow or amber color which worked well?) Or maybe if the LED light is inside a big lantern it will get diffused and the color tone will soften? Help
Okay, so I tried making a throwie last week and using it to light a lantern. I was SUPER excited because the LED lights at LunaBazaar are so expensive — didn’t want to have to pay $4.95 per lantern.
I went to Radio Shack and got the supplies to make my throwie. Be WARNED - there were probably 40 or 50 DIFFERENT types of LED lights to pick from — and I probably picked the wrong ones! I ended up getting 5 mm Red LED lights — with a “Luminous intensity” of 120mcd. I think that the “Luminous intensity” number is probably the most important thing to look for when buying these. The higher the number, the brighter the light will be, assuming you have enough battery power to support the light.
I used two 5 mm LED throwies in an 18″ fuchsia lanten, and it did nothing!! When the throwies were inside the lantern, and the room dark, the lantern wasn’t illuminated at all.
I also tried flickering battery operated tea lights from Bed Bath and Beyond. Even with 3 lights inside the lantern, I got very little glow. I was trying figure out if they rated the tea lights’ “luminous intensity” in any way — but haven’t found that.
If any one has the specific specs on LEDs they had success with, let me know!
@LibraryGirl: Hi! We had success with the 10mm DIFFUSE white LEDs. Three lit up a 14″ white lantern with a nice glow. Two would have probably been enough, but I like the look of 3 better. Make sure it’s the diffuse light and not the “bright” light… we tried the bright and it didn’t light up the lantern very well at all. There’s some more info on my post on this- you could check that out too Good luck!
i am wanting to hang the paper lanterns from the top of the tent I am using. The tent is a pole tent so there are no cables suspended in the top of it. Any ideas as to how to hang these from the top of the tent? I love these but just dont know how to use them. Thanks!!!
Just want to say that Luna Bazaar has a nice photo gallery of weddings and events decorated with paper lanterns here: http://www.lunabazaar.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=427.
