Read the sheet in the order it is installed
Nothing on a spec sheet is dishonest; plenty of it is irrelevant. A wedding light sheet will quote lumen output, power draw and beam angle, but what you need is image width at your throw distance and contrast against the light already on the surface. Those require two more numbers the sheet usually does not give you, which is why they are worth asking for.
Lumens, watts and what reaches the wall
Wattage tells you the running cost, not the result. Two wedding light models at the same wattage can differ by 30% at the wall because of lens efficiency and LED binning. What you actually care about is contrast: the image needs to be meaningfully brighter than the surface it lands on, and that is a lux comparison, not a lumen one.
Throw distance and image size
The useful specification is the throw ratio, or failing that a distance-to-image-width table. On a typical wedding light covering 3–12 m, the zoom lens might take the image from roughly 0.8 m wide at the near end to 3 m at the far end. Once you know the width you need, the throw tells you where the bracket goes — not the other way round.
| Throw | Typical image width | Practical note |
|---|---|---|
| Short, around 3 m | 0.5 – 1.5 m | Bright and easy — most indoor work |
| Mid, around 12 m | 1.5 – 3 m | Where lens quality starts to matter |
| Long, beyond 12 m | 3 m and up | Contrast fails before reach does |
The optical spec most sheets leave out
Two numbers govern the image: gobo image area and the resolution the lens can carry. Glass gobos can be engraved far finer than any wedding light lens in this class will resolve, so the practical limit is optical. That is worth knowing before you pay for engraving detail nobody will see from 10 m away.
The compliance block
Ratings age. A wedding light that left the factory rated IP20 can lose that rating the first time somebody opens it to change a gobo and reseats the gasket badly. Look for a design where routine access does not mean breaking the environmental seal, or accept that the rating applies to the unit as delivered, not as maintained.
Questions worth asking the supplier
Four questions separate a supplier who knows the product from one reading a sheet. What is the image width at my throw distance? What is the gobo image area? Is the IP20 rating for the housing alone or the whole assembly? And what is the lead time on a replacement gobo? A good supplier answers all four in one reply.
