Asia is always brimming with celebrations, some of the most amazing of which happen in the South East.  As the name suggests Thai Lanterns are from Thailand and are now reaching a far wider audiences as they gain popularity at UK events.

One Such Festival by the name of Yee Peng follows the Buddhist Calendar and translates to the twelfth lunar month. The Western Calendar usually finds this falling in November. This Festival goes by the name of Loy Krathong throughout other parts of Thailand.
The Thai people follow this religious festival and the customs it involves. My favorite activity is the releasing of ‘Thai Lanterns’ or ‘Khom Loy’. It is truly magical to observe the sky alight with these glowing orbs. Thai people believe that the departing lantern is accompanied by any woes. The light is said to stare people to a happy and fulfilled life. I am not sure if westerners hold the same belief but every year see’s many joining in on this fun event.
The Thai Lanterns are biodegradable and are constructed from Rice Paper and Bamboo for structure. Flight time is about 12 minutes and the Lanterns are known to reach upward of 1000 feet!
Popularity has been on the rise (excuse the pun) and has even seen the Royal Thai Air Force alter their air activity and make warning to the airport to be cautious of potential dangers should a lantern get stuck in a plane turbine.

WishLantern.co.uk is your leading supplier of Thai Lanterns for weddings and celebrations. We can be reached on 0845 500 1215 or by emailing the team sales@wishlantern.co.uk

With Halloween just around the corner it’s time to get busy and sort out what you’re going to do! Are you going to dress up with the kids and go trick or treating? Are you going to throw a Halloween party for your friends and family? Or are simply going to carve the best Jack O’Lantern of your life? Whatever you decide to do, make sure you include the use of a Chinese Lantern!

A Chinese Lantern (also known as Sky Lanterns and Wish Lanterns) are the perfect accompaniment to any Halloween idea. You can get Chinese Lanterns in orange now too so they will match the holiday perfectly. Chinese Lanterns look glorious when released en mass so why not get yourself ten or twenty lanterns and release them just as the sun goes down to welcome Halloween. If you use orange lanterns they will look like mini Jack O’Lanterns floating away into the sky!

It would be much easier to use orange Chinese Lanterns instead of going out and getting everything you need to actually carve a Jack O’Lantern out of a pumpkin. You can draw a face on an orange Chinese Lantern and use that as your Jack O’Lantern, only thing is, it will be sent up into the sky instead of being sat at your doorstep.

If you’re thinking of having a little Halloween party, the most delicious party treats to make are little mini Halloween cupcakes. You simply need 125g of butter, 3/4 of a cup of sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp of vanilla essence, 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1/2 cup of milk. Once you mix it all together just pop the mixture into cup cake papers and into the oven for 20 minutes. Ice with orange and black icing and you’re away! These cup cakes taste and look amazing, everyone at your party will be begging for more!

If you would like some orange Chinese Lanterns at your Halloween party, please click here to be directed to our online purchasing page alternatively please call us on 0845 500 1215 or email us on contact@wishlantern.com

There’s not much to a Chinese Lantern. Just some rice paper, bamboo, fuel cell and thin wire. So considering there’s not much to them, it’s amazing what they can create! They can make people cry, laugh and even stand there with their mouth open in awe. But most importantly, they help people to send off their wishes which is probably why they are so popular once again.

Chinese Lanterns are quite difficult to make due to the delicate nature of the product materials but are proving to be extremely popular once again. The Chinese Lantern was first used many years ago in Asian Festivals where people would make the lanterns themselves then release the lantern up into the sky as it was thought the lantern would take away their worries and problems with it up into the sky never to been seen again.

The Chinese Lantern was seen as an object that created good luck and fortune so the lanterns were made frequently and released even more frequently at festivals and special events. Over the past couple of years the lanterns have become popular once again. In the UK alone, they have become one of the most popular items used at a wedding.

Brides and Grooms across the United Kingdom have stumbled upon the beauty of a Chinese Lantern and the visual spectacular they can create in the skies above once released. Happy couples usually purchase between 50 and 200 lanterns and have the guests from their wedding release them at the end of the ceremony or reception. As Chinese Lanterns are made from rice paper they can be written on in a soft felt tip pen carefully so people often write wishes on the lanterns for the new couple and send them up into the sky.

Other events people are now using Chinese Lanterns for include, birthday parties, memorial services, anniversaries, funerals and christenings. If you have a special event coming up and would like to order some Chinese Lanterns to use there, please click here to be redirected to our online purchasing page, alternatively you can call us on 0845 500 1215 and we can take your order over the phone. If email suits you better, then we’re at contact@wishlantern.co.uk, we will respond to your email as soon as we can, usually within 24 hours if on a weekday.

Some towns around the world will have an annual Sky or Air Show at some point during the year to showcase the talents of pilots and to put on an awe-inspiring fireworks display. A lot of the time there will be a group of light aircrafts that do tricks and aerobatics and a select group of pilots who fly the fighter jets. The fighter jets usually do high speed air tricks including the ever popular dump and burn which is also referred to as “torching” or “zippos” .

A dump-and-burn is a fuel dump in which the fuel is ignited intentionally using the plane’s afterburner. The spectacular flame combined with high speed makes this is a popular display for air and sky shows or as a finale to a fireworks display.

There’s a particular sky show held each year in Townsville, Queensland, Australia along The Strand which is a long stretch of beach where families usually play, people have fish and chips and things like the Sky Show are held there. The Townsville Sky Show is one of the most anticipated day/night events of the year. Besides the impressive fireworks display at the end of the show, there’s the RAAF’s (Royal Australian Air Force) fleet of fine aircrafts on display including the popular F-111s.

It would be perfect to use Sky Lanterns at the Sky Show! At the end of the show just before the fireworks end, it would be magical to release some sky lanterns up into the sky alongside the fireworks, it would look amazing and the aircrafts would be long gone by then so they wouldn’t post a threat to the pilots in any way. If you are attending a sky show in the near future, consider taking some sky lanterns to release and add to the marvel in the skies!

Wish Lantern is the UK’s leading supplier of Sky Lanterns. If you would like to purchase some sky lanterns, please click here to be directed to our online purchasing page, alternatively please call us on 0845 500 1215 or email contact@wishlantern.co.uk.

According to the UN Population Division there are approximately 216 000 babies born every day in the world. That’s a lot of nappies! It’s a special day when a baby comes into the world, especially if the baby is your own or someone very close to you. So there’s no wonder people make such a fuss over them and want to welcome them into the world in a special way.

There are lots of ways to welcome a baby into the world, most people mark the day in a special way of some sort whether it’s a party or a simple card that goes out to friends and family informing them of the baby’s name, weight and the day they were born.

A great way to say hello to bub is to have a small gathering at your home and have each guest release a sky lantern along with the wishes they have for the new baby. The wishes might be to have a happy life, to be healthy or perhaps to be brave. Guests can write their wishes directly onto the sky lanterns with a soft felt tip pen or a marker or simply think them in their minds or say them out aloud when they release the sky lantern up into the sky. The sky lantern will carry the wishes with it up into the skies and will create a beautiful visual display in the sky for all the guests at the same time.

There are white and coloured sky lanterns you can choose from, the white lanterns are particularly visually effective if being launched during the evening where as the coloured sky lanterns look amazing when launched during the day. Some people prefer the coloured ones for the babies, especially the blue and pink!

If you are expecting a child or know someone that is and you think sky lanterns would create the perfect moment for welcoming the child into the world, then please click here to be directed to our online purchasing page or call us on 0845 500 1215 or email us at contact@wishlantern.co.uk

Last week the team here at Wish Lantern donated 30 of our sky lanterns to the Newlove Foundation, in case you don’t know who they are and what they do this blog will tell you. The Newlove Foundation was set up by Helen Newlove and her three daughters Zoe, Danielle and Amy on the 8th of November 2008, Helen is the widow of tragically murdered Gary Newlove who was killed outside of there home after confronting a gang of youths. Helen spotted thetrend of bored young people from the Warrington area turning to crime and decided it was time to give them something to do.

Not only does Helen and the rest of the good people at the Newlove Foundation try to inspire people to lead a more purposeful life,  motivate people to enrich their lives, provide opportunities for positive interaction with communities they also offer support and guidence to victims of similar tragadies. The sky lanterns that we have donated are designanted for the secret garden themed first Newlove anniversy ball which is taking place on the 7th of November 2009 at Warrington town hall. If you want to attend or even just find out more about this extremely good cause the have a look at the Newlove Foundation’s website.

We are hoping that the donated lanterns will add a little magic to an already special occassion and that support for the Newlove Foundationm continues to grows. Our new relationship with the foundation is one that we will strive to keep for many years and I’m sure there will be future donations of our sky lanterns.

Wishlantern.co.uk is your leading supplier of wish Lanterns for weddings and celebrations. We can be reached on 0845 500 1215 or by emailing the team sales@wishlantern.co.uk

The Wish Lantern Team recently donated 20 lanterns to the Children’s outpatient department of  City Hospitals Sunderland.

All the staff do fantastic work in ensuring that the children they care for are made as happy and as comfortable as possible. Many of these children are suffering from terminal illnesses and have a greatly reduced life expectancy, and it is the role of the community nursery nurses provide support for the families of these children during the final stages of their lives, making it possible for the child to die at home if this is the family’s wish. It is a crucial and admirable role. It is so important that families are given adequate support in such deeply dsitressing times, and whatever can be done to alleviate just a tiny proportion of the trauma, is well worth the effort

In recent months a number of children have passed away and wish lanterns have been asked to play a part in paying tribute to their’s (and many other’s) lives. Twenty Lanterns of varying colours have been donated to the community nursery nurse team in order to be used to celebrate the children’s birthdays or to remember them on the first anniversary of their passing. Releasing a lantern is a lovely way of honouring someone after death, and we are delighted to be part (even in a very small way) of such an important cause.

Wishlantern.co.uk is your leading supplier of wish Lanterns for weddings and celebrations. We can be reached on 0845 500 1215 or by emailing the team sales@wishlantern.co.uk

The Wish Lantern team were thrilled to see sky lanterns not only being the star attraction of a young couple’s wedding, but also providing the muse for the award winning photographer James Davidson.

These photographs of Scheugnet and Nick’s wedding, were taken on July 18th this year, and are some of the best images of wish lanterns in action I’ve seen in a while. There’s no doubt about it, Davidson knows how to take a good photo!

The key to getting an impressive shot is to find the point of focus and to do something interesting with it. People’s animated and complex facial expressions when caught unawares are always a fail safe way of getting a unique and intriguing image (see image 6- middle of bottom row). You can also find a multitude of interesting angles to exploit which can have breathtaking reults.

Imperfection is also beautiful, and ‘mistakes’ made when taking a photograph are often the very thing that breathes life into the static image.  Everyone knows what a wish lantern looks like head on, but do all of us know what the sense of it rising feels like? A blurred image of a lone lantern (see image 9-bottom right), or a cluttered sky line with some lanterns obscuring others and creating indefineable shapes, can take you right into the heart of the experience…which is after all, what a photograph should do.

Wishlantern.co.uk is your leading supplier of wish Lanterns for weddings and celebrations. We can be reached on 0845 500 1215 or by emailing the team sales@wishlantern.co.uk

Bunyip State Forest Feb 2009

As August 2009 came to a close, consumer affairs minister in Australia, Craig Emerson, issued a ban on the supply and sale of Chinese Lanterns (or Sky Lanterns) as a preventative measure to reduce the risk of bush fires in the region.

No one could forget the horrific fires in february of this year- now referred to as ‘Black Saturday‘- which claimed the lives of almost 200 people and caused injury to over 400, in the state of Victoria, Australia. These fires were down to a number of unfortunate factors colliding all at the same instant; a group of arsonists allegedly started some of the fires, SP AusNet- a company which provides electricity to areas of Victoria were also investigated as one of their power lines collapsed, and finally weather conditions (of which global warming is partially to blame) were extreme, with temperatures reaching a record breaking 38 degrees.

None of these factors in isolation would have been enough to reap the havoc that took place on that blackest of days, but together they were a recipe for absolute catastrophe. It is of course only right that every step possible  should be taken to alleviate any unnecessary fire risk, like banning chinese lanterns. But, we would like to stress that used in the kind of climate we have here in the United Kingdom, our wish lanterns are perfectly safe and shouldn’t be a cause for concern, as long as they are handled with care. And that’s all they require;- like ovens, like matches, like balloons, or any other potentially hazardous object (most things)- a little care and caution.

Here are a few reminders to make sure that your lantern remains a source of joy and delight, and not a potential threat:

- Make sure weather conditions are good- no blustery winds, no showers, no unpredictability.

- Check the wind direction- again to avert the unexpected.

- light your lantern in an open space- not near or in a built up forest area or bush, airport, or any other place where their flight path could be obstructed or where they could cause a distraction.

Handle with Care

- Light your lantern with the help of a partner- this prevents any possibility of scorching the rice paper body of the lantern.

- Don’t smoke or drink whilst lighting the lantern- and don’t be intoxicated when handling it (never a good idea!)

- It’s probably best not to allow young children to handle them either.

Many of these points are just common sense, and precautions you’d take when going about most activities. You wouldn’t drive a car in extreme weather conditions, when drunk, when there are obstacles in the way, and you certainly wouldn’t let young children get behind the wheel. That doesn’t mean you should abstain from driving altogether though…

Wishlantern.co.uk is your leading supplier of Chinese Lanterns for weddings and celebrations. To find out more about safety precautions to take when handling the lanterns, simply follow the link or call 0845 500 1215 or email the team on sales@wishlantern.co.uk for further advice.

At the Wish Lantern Headquarters, we were thrilled when we were approached to take part in an interview with Essex based photographer, Hayley Ruth.

Every Wednesday she has featured a Q&A session with a wedding supplier on her blog site (a very nice idea I think), and this week it’s none other than wishlantern.co.uk! We can now count ourselves amongst the amazing Biscuiteers- a unique cookie-making outfit, whose unique selling point is that they supply detailed and perfectly iced miniature biscuits for absolutely every occassion. Next time you want to send a card, send a biscuit instead!

Last week, Hayley interviewed Mark from Lenik Media Wedding Films, who offered some great tips on how to get the best out of your wedding film, and advice on how to negotiate your photographer and your filmmaker on the big day. Click here to read the interview.

Check out some of Hayley Ruth’s stunning photgraphs:

Just imagine the sorts of breathtaking images a group of ascending wish lanterns would make through Hayley Ruth’s camara lens…

Wishlantern.co.uk is your leading supplier of wish Lanterns for weddings and celebrations. We can be reached on 0845 500 1215 or by emailing the team sales@wishlantern.co.uk