No Strings Attached: The Beauty of LED Lanterns

They might possibly be the greatest wedding invention ever. Ok, well, maybe not THE greatest (and they'd work for any type of party, not just weddings....). But still, they're pretty freakin' awesome. What am I talking about? These little suckers:


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And no, these aren't your regular paper lanterns, these come with 12 battery powered LED lights inside! No longer do we have to worry about cords, breaking light bulbs, or worse, lit candles inside these things. They're cord-free, and can be hung or stood up....sweet! And the price from my source link was pretty awesome too, and the cheapest I found online. I got 12 of the 12 inch lanterns for $6.50 each (this is with the LED lights inside, people!) and 16 of the 10 inch lanterns for $5.50 each. Most stores make you buy the lantern and the lighting element separate, for at least $3-4 more total (as in, what I paid for for the blue lanterns for our rehearsal dinner tables). Even better, the promo code 'fship' saved me $15.95 on shipping, so check it out!

So ya'll are probably wondering what the heck I'm going to do with these lanterns (get to the POINT already, Cola!). Ok, ok! Well, back when we were first looking at The Mountain Terrace for our wedding venue, I saw this pic on their website and fell in love with the concept:

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However, it's kinda odd that they have these lanterns hanging where they do in the picture. See, if you remember back to my post about the venue, there are two levels to the outdoor deck. In this pic you're seeing the bottom level, which is all open on the dining table side, and on the other side of the steps is a tree around which we'll set up the buffet. I even brought this picture in to ask the site manager how the lanterns were hung, and she didn't know, since there isn't anywhere to hang these from!

So moving on to plan B, we're going to hang two rows of the 12 inch lanterns under the lattice covering on the second level of the deck, one row in the center of the lattice (where the heat lamps are, we hopefully won't need those in June), one row at the outer edge of the lattice, between the vertical posts. Here is the lattice over the second level of the deck for your reference:

(picture taken by me)

Still cute though, right? And then, with the 16 10 inch lanterns, I want them placed on either side of the four sets of deck stairs, on 1 up from bottom step and 1 down from top. This is what the bare stairs look like:

(sorry it's not the best picture, it's taken from TMT's virtual tour. You'll just have to trust me that there's 4 sets of stairs on the deck)

I think that with these lanterns, plus the white Christmas lights they already have wrapped around the deck railings and vertical posts, it will look really nice once it gets dark out. Here it is with just the Christmas lights:


What have you come across that is YOUR best wedding invention ever? And will you be adding lighting options to your reception site, or going with just what they already provide?