With Video Mapping, Destination Weddings Can Happen Anywhere

When Jonathan Dubin, 34, and Madison Bigos Dubin, 30, hosted their wedding reception last October, they transported their guests to Upper Antelope Canyon in Arizona.

Only the reception was held at Cipriani 25 Broadway in downtown New York.

The couple accomplished this sleight of hand through video mapping, or video projections that effectively paint large surfaces like walls and ceilings.

“I had to remind myself that I was in a ballroom because the atmosphere was so immersive,” said Hutton Bailey, a guest who flew in from Chicago.

Mr. Dubin said the images of Upper Antelope Canyon were intended to evoke the feeling of celebrating inside the canyon, which is near the resort where the couple would be honeymooning in Utah.

Panoramas of the New York City skyline followed. The finale was aerial views of the Empire State Building as the D.J. and a saxophonist played a rendition of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” while many of their 250 guests sang and danced.

Mr. and Ms. Dubin, both real estate entrepreneurs in New York, said that video mapping appealed to them because it immersed their guests in places they love. For Ms. Dubin, who is from Minnesota, it was an opportunity to give family and friends from home “a quintessential New York experience.”

With couples increasingly integrating technological innovations into their weddings, video mapping is gaining popularity at ceremonies and receptions, according to event planners and other wedding experts.

Julie Novack, a founder and chief executive of PartySlate, an event planning platform, said that video mapping has its roots in the corporate and nonprofit world. (It has also long been used in contemporary art.) “It was first widely adopted by companies around a decade ago for product launches and to project their logos,” she said. “It’s now finding its way into social events like weddings. ”

Victoria Dubin, Mr. Dubin’s mother and an event planner in New York, said such projections are increasingly an element of the weddings she plans (including her son’s). One couple she worked with in May 2022 chose one that evoked an Italian Renaissance garden with mossed walls, fountains, statues and frescoes on the walls. “The bride and groom thought about getting married in Europe but chose to bring their vision of Europe to New York,” she said.

Video mapping can come at a high cost, with pricing falling within a broad range. Patrick Theriot, a projection designer and the founder of See-Hear Productions, based in Covington, La., who designed the Dubins’ projections said, “Projecting on the side of a forty-story building may require $100,000 or more in just hardware rental, but projecting on a wedding cake may require an equipment rental of less than $5,000.”

According to data from the wedding platform Joy, video mapping was a $3.9 billion market globally in 2023 and is projected to surpass $4.8 billion this year. The company’s chief executive, Vishal Joshi, estimates that wedding video mapping is currently a $100 million industry in the United States, with couples projecting onto cakes, dance floors or entire venues.

The Temple House in Miami has an in-house production team that creates content. Couples can choose from their extensive projection library, which includes a starry night, fireworks, sparkling rain, disco balls and the Italian Riviera. They can also request custom projects.

Omar Lopez, director of events at Candela La Brea, a venue set in a 1920s building in Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile, said, “We host around eight weddings a year that use video mapping, and that number is growing steadily.”

Henry Rodriguez, 46, who works for an education nonprofit, and Suriel Castro, 35, an office manager who lives in Long Beach, hosted their ceremony and reception there last August, which was attended by 225 guests.

Both events included backdrops of cherry blossom trees. When it was time to dance, the room alternated between rotating disco balls and flashing lights. “We wanted to create a nightclub ambiance,” Mr. Rodriguez said. He said they spent more than $3,000 to include the projections, and “the expense was well worth it.”

Video mapping isn’t limited to indoor areas.

Alyssa Carrai, 27, a photographer, and Daniel Carrai, 26, a creative director and founder of the production studio Sever, who live in Charlotte, N.C., included it in their wedding reception last April. The celebration, which 75 guests attended, was at the Andrews Farm, in Midland, N.C, in an outdoor area with a swimming pool and white house.

Mr. Carrai, who has used video mapping in his work with music artists, designed an abstract chrome silver projection that was displayed on the home’s exterior and resembled moving water.

“It felt like you were moving through water when you walked by,” he said. “Our guests told us the projection was unlike anything they had ever seen.”