How many Paper Lanterns?

lburkey21

My reception venue has 4 posts near the dance floor and I wanted to decorate the area between the posts with paper lanterns. I thought this would add a nice visual element and essentially be our only decorations (besides centerpieces). Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how many lanterns I'll need - and if it's going to be too expensive!

The area between the posts is 30' x 60' - it's pretty big!
I was thinking about doing two different sizes of lanterns. I did some preliminary math using all 12" lanterns and came up with 216 total lanterns!! That seems like a TON!!

I did 12 lanterns per row with 24" between each lantern and then 18 rows with 42" between each row. Does that sound about right?

Or should I just buy like 100 lanterns and just randomly put them up?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!! TIA!!

kate1321

I am dealing with a similar lantern issue and have decided that "random" is better! I think that the idea of a totally semetrical placement will make it feel a little too rigid. Another thing you could think about is using more than one color lantern; example my colors are sand, lime green, and aqua (beach wedding)...so we are mixing up our lantern colors to make it look even more natural.  You can put more lanterns (and thus more light) in places you want highlighted.