Summer’s in full swing, the steaks are sizzling on the grill and common’s the country over are a flurry with social cricket, picnics and sunbathing. The Wish Lantern team want you to be a hit at your next garden party so we have compiled a list of must have accessories and clever catering ideas to leave a lasting impression on guests as well as avoiding any unforgiveable garden faux-pas.

1.    Leave yourself more time to mingle with guests and enjoy the sunshine by employing a hog roasting company to cater to your culinary requirements. We recommend the fabulous BigRoast team whom cook, serve and even collect the dirty plates and cutlery for cleaning offsite. It really couldn’t get easier than that!

2.    A Boom Boom Boom, let me hear you say Wah Oh… WAY OH! No party is complete without some speakers to blast out the hits and this funky portable soundsystem is perfect. The Alesis Transactive for iPod found at Chemicaluk.com fits the bills with up to 12hr battery life, enough grunt to annoy the neighbours as well as an iPod dock and included microphone in case you get the urge to belt out some karaoke favourites.

3.    Once the food has settled and the suns dipped down for the evening we recommend our Chinese Lanterns as a novel way to entertain guests. People love setting them off and a succession of lanterns cascading into the night sky is nothing short of spectacular.

4.    Fill a shallow bucket with ice then add one of these mini-kegs from Heineken and you’ll be the envy of your friends with no fuss icy cold drinks good for 5 Litres. That should keep you going for at least the afternoon and when your done you can visit Instructables site which gives help on recycling the keg into a rubbish bin, money box or even flower pot.

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

Luck favours the lucky – and it certainly favours those Inni. The entourage gathered for a celebration of the working lives of Dave and Jean, and wisely chose Wish lanterns to provide the highlight of the evening. From three year olds all the way through to ninety year olds – they held their wish lanterns aloft and set them free in the beautiful grounds of London Welsh Rugby club – the Old Deer Park.

The photos below are a few of the better shots and we hope they’ll be enjoyed by the Innes’s extended family – there are also a whole selection of videos that have been loaded onto our You Tube Wish Lantern channel for your enjoyment.

“A life with Wish Lanterns is a better life.” David Innes, 22nd August 2009 @ 8.04pm

Sky Lanterns have come to be associated with times of joy, celebration and festivity. Rightly so. They create a dazzling display and are highly theatrical and dramatic, so it’s no wonder they have become such popular party accessories. But, a single sky lantern can also be a wonderful way of commemorating the passing of a loved one.

Loss is something every person, young and old, has to face at some point in their lives. It is part of the human condition to have to experience that sort of pain and trauma, just as it is written into our makeup that we should feel love and  hunger. It is often very difficult to digest death, and many struggle to understand the finality of it, and its strange and overwhelming enigma. People also have very different ways of coping with it, some block it out, others immerse themselves in their grief, others experience delayed grief, and find themselves mourning many years later (for more information about grieving a loss, follow the link).

All this seems a terribly morbid and sombre topic for a blog post, but there is a point to it. Though I wouldn’t for a minute suggest that sky lanterns, or wish lanterns, make death more bearable, they do however bring people together, and afford them the space and time to quietly contemplate their pain.

Releasing a single sky lantern after a memorial service or funeral, really is a wonderful way of paying tribute to a life that has been lost, and furthermore, it is the physical representation of an emotional release. It is as though you are letting go a small part of your grief, or a small part of the person you are mourning, as you let the lantern go. This cleansing effect is, after all,  part of the sky lantern’s history.

A sky lantern will not cut grief short, but it will offer an opportunity to face it head on and to begin- very slowly and very surely- to come to terms with it, and to-in a very small way- let it go.

If you have used Sky lanterns or Wish lanterns in a time of great pain or distress, do feel free to share your experiences with us by submitting your comments.

Chinese lanterns…the perfect accompaniment to London’s biggest and longest standing weekend festival, the notting Hill carnival. It’s that time of year again, the last, sunny bank holiday weekend in August, when we all bid farewell to the summer (what there was of it), and welcome in the autumn term. Celebrations all round.

The Notting Hill Carnival has been going since the 1960s, and was originally a means by which Afro-Caribbean communities could celebrate their own culture and traditions, and since then has gained a reputation as the most vibrant and lively street parties in Europe. At the heart of the Notting Hill festival, are the Caribbean carnivals of the early 19th century – a strong tradition in Trinidad – which were geared towards celebrating the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. The very first carnival was an attempt to showcase the steel band musicians who played at the Coleherne pub in Earls Court every Sunday. The band paraded through the street drawing out black residents from their homes an celebrating in shared memory of their homelands.

'ello, 'ello, what's going on here then?

Still that element of community, shared hope and euphoria pervade the carnival, and it’s always a memorable occassion for both those within and without the Caribbean culture. It’s a celebration of diversity and people more than anything else.

If you’re planning on going to Notting Hill this weekend, here are a few tips: Make sure you have a bottle of water on you at all times, have cash ready- no one wants to fuss around with chipping and pinning and you’ll never get to a cash point, wear comfy shoes and clothes- you’re likely to be doing a lot of walking, and take a camera. Most importantly, don’t forget to bring some chinese lanterns or sky lanterns along for the ride. The bright, spacious streets, uplifting  music and over one million happy revellers, make for the perfect environment to release some lanterns into the sun kissed skies. It’s the ultimate celebratory event, not to be missed. In fact, I should probably get myself down there now…

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

Wish Lantern UK were pleased to be invited to a welcome to the world(christening with out the christ) of Milli Mohindra a few weeks ago. A last minute panic obviously ensued as we rushed around trying to find a suitable gift for the eight month old angel – with my wife naturally blaming me for forgetting to remind her!

A quick trip down to the office and we went armed with a large pack of Wish Lanterns to symbolise our hopes and wishes for Milli as she starts her life.

As you can see from the pictures below the lanterns were let off later in the evening – unfortunately after Millihad decided to rest her head for the night. Our full range of Christening lanterns is available at www.wishlantern.com.

Wish Lantern UK are proud to announce the launch of two new product lines – Halloween lanterns and Santa lanterns.

These product lines will be available at the end of September. More details and pictures will be posted online as they become available.

In the meantime to wet your collective appetites, we are previewing the new style inserts that will be in every lantern sold when our new stock arrives. The new inserts provide more detailed information on how to launch Wish Lanterns as well as a more fun image for our exciting new product lines.

For more information on our new products please email contact@wishlantern.co.uk. Retailers may download images below for point of sale usage.

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The Herriot Hospice Homecare charity (now that rolls off the tongue nicely), are releasing sky lanterns in memory of a loved one to kick off their midnight walk around Richmond on the 12th September.

Wish Lantern Uk is all for supporting worthy causes, so when we heard of Heriot Hospice’s plans to do a midnight walk around Richmond to raise money for the charity’s ongoing good work, we felt it only right to get involved in whatever way possible. We;ve donated some wish lanterns to the organization, which will be released at 11.45pm, just before the 8 mile amble in September- and what a good idea it is too. There’s surely no better way to pay tribute to a loved one than to ignite a sky lantern and set it free to shed light across a beautiful skyline. It will no doubt get the walk off to a flying start as well!

We hope that our lanterns will provide an excellent starting point for these dedicated midnight ramblers, and we wish them well on their excursion. Watch this space for photos and videos of the event…

If you, Like Herriot Hospice, would like to pay tribute to a loved one with sky lanterns, please do get in touch. We can be reached on 0845 500 1215 or by emailing the team sales@wishlantern.co.uk

Here at WishLantern.co.uk we’re happy to announce a new range of chinese lanterns that we’re going to be selling in the lead up to Christmas!  The new lanterns would be a perfect way to send off someone’s Christmas list to ensure Santa brings all the right presents.

We’ve uploaded a video showing the new lanterns in all their glory that you can see below;

These chinese lanterns are just prototypes, we would welcome any comments or improvements you think could improve them (and yes we are going to make the face a bit less pink!).

If you have any ideas about our new lanterns please do leave a comment, alternatively email us at sales@wishlantern.co.uk with any questions you may have.

To Float?

To Hang?

Hanging or floating Chinese Lanterns? What would you opt for at your next celebratory event? This is not really a debate as such, more a gentle musing. What it comes down to is a matter of personal taste.

Obviously if you are reading this blog, then you’re clearly a fan of the floating sky lantern, and you’d be right in your opinion. At wish lantern UK, there’s no contest.

The floating lantern offers something altogether more magical and awe-inspiring than the simple hanging variety- You can also get water floating lanterns, but these are certainly not as convenient and easy to operate as the sky bound lantern- The launching of a swarm of floating sky and chinese lanterns creates something of an event, it becomes the talking point, the moving centrepiece, the showstopping, crowd-pleasing part in the proceedings. Floating lanterns also allow your guests to fully participate. They light, they touch, they hold and release. They have an active hand in producing some of the magic.

Hanging lanterns on the other hand are there to be admired passively. They look perfectly pretty, but they tend to merge into the background of a brightly lit or heavily decorated interior. They’re just a small part of an array of attractive sights, but they’re not, unlike floating lanterns, an event in themselves. Hanging lanterns are oil paintings, floating lanterns are uber modern art installations.

The answer is to have both at your next big bash.  Have hanging lanterns to add an extralight  dimension to the space and instigate a lantern launch to mark the occassion in true style. If you’re budget won’t stretch to both…well, I know which lanterns I’d opt for…

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

It seems extraordinary that so many people can mistake sky lanterns for something altogether more  otherwordly. The only similarity- assuming you base your idea of what a UFO looks like on the film Independence Day- is that both inhabit the sky. That’s really it.

There’s nothing about a sky lantern that is remotely similar to what could be described as an alien spaceship. Why then have there been so many supposed UFO sightings? Is it little Miss Smith wanting her five minutes of fame as she informs the local Press of a strange light in the night sky? Or do these people genuinely believe that other life forms in the form of fire balls are threatening human existence? What was going through Miss Jones’ head for instance (I have used a false name to protect her identity) when she called police in the wee small hours because she had seen a hovering light?

On the scale of things, a hovering light doesn’t exactly top the bill in the earth shattering, life threatening stakes. It’s not on a par with say, spotting an axe murderer in your hedge, or finding a ticking bomb in your back garden.

Seeing as Sky Lanterns and wish lanterns, are only going to increase in popularity, it’s likely that more of these ’sightings’ will crop up in the near future. One couple recently reported to have seen over forty lights in the last week- We see lights practically every other night -they said- At first we thought they were planes, but there’s no sound or flashing... Yes, that’s because they’re made of rice paper.

So, lets clear this up once and for all. Sky lanterns are not UFO’s. If you see a light in the sky. Stop, think, have a little ponder, and you’ll probably come to the conclusion that there’s nothing much to write home about. after all.

Wishlantern.co.uk is your leading supplier of Sky lanterns (not UFOs) for weddings and celebrations. We can be reached on 0845 500 1215 or by emailing the team sales@wishlantern.co.uk