DNB*LAN

Wedding Centerpiece Design

I wanted to make something special and unique for my wedding, so naturally, I made something with RGB LEDs! All our centerpieces at the receptions were composed of a slice of wood, a decorated jar with flowers, and a lantern with RGB LEDs. The LEDs were controlled by an ESP8266 WiFi-enabled microcontroller and powered by a small power bank. Under a central table was a powered Intel NUC, router, and a Ubiquiti Wireless Access Point to handle all the wireless connections. The Intel NUC was hosting a local web service that all guests would connect to via their devices. This website allowed each guest to control their table's centerpiece with an array of 256-bit colors with various patterns. The website also allowed guests to make song requests to the DJ, upload any photos taken by their devices during our wedding, and leave a message for my wife and me to read after the wedding. As different lighting commands came in from different devices, my NodeJS backend would populate a MongoDB database. Then a multi-threaded Python service would query the database and send commands to all the centerpieces to update the RGB LED lighting. This project ended up working very successfully and facilitated some great entertainment, such as our DJ playing Baby Shark at the reception.