luminaries or glass votives?

schwoebr · October 2009

I'm having a winter wedding, so it will be dark out when the guests arrive at the church. I want to line the walkway from the parking lot to the sanctuary doors with candles, but my question is whether there is a pro/con to luminaries vs. glass votive holders. Both are about the same cost-wise (dollar store glass votive holders)...other than the ground potentially being wet I can't think of what else I should be thinking of. Advice? TIA!

mehgank · October 2009

In my experience, luminaries don't give off as much light as votives in glass holders do. They give off more of a glow than direct light, so you might end up spending more $ to buy more luminaries to give off as much light as you would have if you had gone with less votives. (side note: we're talking votives here, the ones that are about 2" tall, not tealights which are teeny-tiny, right?)

Da0419 · October 2009

First of all, check with the church to see their rules on open fires. If they have a problem with unattended flames outside the church, luminaries with those tap lights would work really well. I tend to like luminaries better anyway because they give a really romantic glow. I think they'd be easier to clean up and dispose of than candles. Besides, what are you going to do with all the candles and containers once the day is over? Just a thought though. Good luck.

schwoebr · October 2009

Both good things to think about, thanks! I don't think the church cares about flames outside, and it's a pretty long walkway so more for less would be better- going off of the "votives will give more light" idea from above...good thing I have lots of time to figure it out! Here's a picture of the walkway, and the three main trees will have lights around the trunks too![img]http://i958.photobucket.com/albums/ae64/schwoebr/Buildingphoto.jpg[/img]

handfast4me · October 2009

I love the look of luminaries, but there is a downside. A couple of years ago I attended a party that was in a building. There were luminaries lining the sidewalk up to the building. It looked lovely when I arrived, about an hour before the party started. Then, (this was in Virginia, in December) it started to snow. A big, wet, heavy snow. The bags started to bend with the weight of the snow. Then the got caught in the flames. Pretty soon there were arriving guests stomping on and throwing snow on small blazes lining the sidewalk. Looking back on it, it was funny and sort of got the party started. But at the time it seemed like a disaster. But, maybe your bags would be of higher quality than the bags used at that party? I've also seen ceramic luminaries, but that may be cost prohibitive.

Catwoman708 · October 2009

I love the look of luminarias. We made them out of white bags, with a little pea gravel to weight them down (about a cup full), and I bought cheap battery operated flameless tealights at a dollar tree (they were 2-3 for a dollar). The lights were enough to give the bags a dim glow, but not as bright as a candle would be. The cheap flameless candles I think were supposed to burn about 60 hours, more than long enough, plus some extra time to reuse them elsewhere or for another occasion. Out of 50 I bought at the Dollar Tree, 2 of them didn't work. The better, slightly more expensive kind burn about 100 hours and were a little better quality, but didn't burn any brighter.