If you are planning a wedding and need to know how much power you will need, you have come to the right place. This article looks at how to power outdoor weddings and outlines how much power is required.

How to Power a Tent Wedding Reception

Suppose you decide to host your wedding reception outside with a marquee company or tent. In that case, you will have to power your lighting, music equipment, catering appliances, and other things. Given that tent wedding receptions tend to occur in remote sites, far from a mains connection, pull-behind generators are the next best power source. 

Power-wise, you'll need a generator circuit of between 15 to 20 amps for a typical outdoor wedding reception. If each amp equates to 100 watts, that's roughly a 2Kw generator. To find out exactly what size of generator you need, create a list of all the appliances you'll be using and their total wattage draw. Once you have an accurate figure, we recommend you double the amount just to be safe. 

How Much Power Do You Need For A Wedding?

Again, you can likely meet your electrical power requirements for a basic marquee wedding circuit with 15 to 20 amps or 2000 watts. But who wants to make the most joyous day of their life basic? Most often, couples want to splash out in one area or another. They might want some dramatic uplighting or some serious gourmet catering, in which case you'll need a lot more power.

However, there are ways to keep your power requirements to a minimum while still creating the perfect day for you and your guests. LED lighting is incredibly energy efficient, so it will not require too much wattage from your generator. Additionally, if your caterers can use gas-fired cooking equipment, this will also keep your power requirements low. Both of these methods will reduce the generator size you need to power your wedding reception. 

As a general rule, the two biggest draws on your electricity will be the catering and your band or sound system. But there are numerous other considerations to bear in mind. If you're going to need extra electrical sockets, this will have to be added to your requirements when you total them up. Other things, such as photo booths or other entertainment, can also add to your requirements.

Temperature control is another factor to consider. Obviously, most outdoor weddings will take place during the summer. But if it gets too hot, you might opt for some air conditioning to keep your guests cool, which can significantly draw on your hire generator electricity. Portable toilet facilities can also be fairly power-hungry, depending on how luxurious they are. The bar, however, shouldn't be too much of a worry, as they will likely only have a couple of bottle fridges and a freezer for the ice that require power. 

Power Requirements For Tent Weddings

While it's all well and good talking generally about what elements of your tent wedding reception will have the biggest draw on your power, what about the specifics? In this section, we'll go through the various things most outdoor weddings tend to have and which will have the biggest impact on your generators.

Again, however big you plan to have your reception, once you've calculated your power requirements, it is a prudent measure always to add a couple hundred more watts to your total.

This way, if something does go wrong or the generator cuts out, the remainder of your power supply won't be affected.  On the other hand, bands generally require much more power than DJs. With numerous amps, speakers and other equipment, it is fairly useless to provide them with a couple of plug sockets.

This is another way your power could trip mid-way through their set. Finding out how much power they will need beforehand allows you to hire an appropriately sized generator to keep your guests dancing all night long.

-Perimeter Lighting

Perimeter lighting is another opportunity to make use of frugal LED lighting. These lighting fixtures typically require up to 2 amps per light. Again, depending on the size of your venue location, you may need quite a few of these. You might also want to consider providing sufficient lighting for any pathways or parking areas around your chosen site to help your guests find their way.

-Dance Floor Lighting

What good is a wedding reception dance floor without any disco lights? Again we encounter the distinction between LED and non-LED lighting. Your typical dance floor will need around 20 lights. For LED fixtures, this means a draw of 2 amps. However, for non-LED light fixtures, this draw increases to 10 amps.

Leko lights are also a must for any dance floor worth its salt, and these typically run at 5 amps a piece. Talking with your lighting service or the DJ to find out what they'll use is the best way to accommodate the right power requirements.

-Food Warmers & Coffee Makers

Power requirements for these will depend on the extent and sophistication of your catering service. However, your typical food warmers and coffee makers usually run at 10 amps each.

Not to labour the point, but it is crucial to ensure your wedding day goes off without a hitch; speaking to your catering service to determine their power requirements is the best way to provide an average breakdown to your generator supplier. 

How Much Power Does Your Wedding Require?

When choosing an appropriate generator size, your total wattage should be your guiding light. The best way to accurately calculate a full power estimate is to speak with each of your other vendors or entertainment services to determine how much draw their equipment will have on your generators.

Of course, not everyone is an electrical engineer, so once you have your figures to hand, simply inform your chosen generator hire company.  These companies will have worked on numerous outdoor tent events and will already have a rough idea of your power requirements before you even give them a figure.

This experience allows them to help you choose the right size of generator for your tent wedding reception. They will know to double your calculations to account for mishaps and can handle all of the technical aspects of choosing between inverter style or non-inverter generators. 

Again, most professional generator hire companies work from the baseline of your basic outdoor wedding, needing 15 to 20 amps, or 2000 watts, of electrical power. However, once you give them your calculations, they will know how much or how little to scale up when choosing the right generator.

They will also know what contingencies and additional things to account for, allowing you to rest assured that your wedding will have enough power throughout the day.

Do You Have Land Power Available For Use?

If you've found an outdoor wedding reception site with access to land power, using it to power any appliances or provide additional power will help you keep costs down on your generator hire. 

However, there are practical and safety concerns to bear in mind when using land power. Most often, you'll need to use extension cords when drawing from indoor power. Therefore, you'll need to be careful about running too many extension leads running everywhere.

We recommend that you limit your extension cord and use only one or two hundred feet of them to keep things safe and manageable. 

Also, you should avoid using anything bigger than a 12-gauge wire. Using anything bigger, such as a 16 or 18-gauge extension wire, which are your common orange extension cords, you risk overextending and losing some of the voltage you will receive.

There is also the potential that you will burn any electrical equipment attached to the cord.  Regardless of whether you have access to land power, you will need multi-circuits for your tent wedding, no matter what. However, don't be tempted to pick up an extension cord and simply plug everything into it.

This, again, can lead to overheating. If everything is running smoothly and as it should, your cords should remain cool enough to operate properly. Overloaded extension cords can become incredibly hot and potentially fail during your big day.

Non-inverter vs Inverter Generators

Now we get to the technical part of tent wedding generators. You can typically hire two main generator types for your big day: non-inverter and inverter generators. The former are usually quite small, meaning they are more portable and easier to install, with most people probably having one sitting in their garage.

However, even if you have easy access to a non-inverter generator, you don't want to use it for anything too large, such as an entirely outdoor wedding reception.

Non-inverter generators are typically used to power small appliances, such as power tools, with average circuits. In the context of a tent wedding, however, you can use them to power incandescent light fixtures, coffee machines or other small appliances.

While it will keep these things running efficiently for the time they're needed, there is no way a non-inverter generator could power your whole wedding. Non-invertors only have the fuel capacity to run for up to 4 consecutive hours, which doesn't really give you enough time to get through the night on your reception.

Picture the scene - you take to the dance floor for your first dance, and there's a power cut. Are you going to send the father of the bride out into the dark to pour more diesel into a non-inverter generator? Definitely not. Play it safe, and choose a larger inverter generator in tow-behind units for more than double the power.