Photo Booths

Photos are a huge deal to me, growing up I had an entire wall in my bedroom covered in photos I had taken.  Before digital cameras I would save up my money to buy film and then to have the pictures developed, often opting for the more expensive option of an hours processing because I was too impatient to wait 24 hours.
I love taking pictures (especially with my new camera) and I love to be surrounded my pictures of people and places I love.

Picking our wedding photographer, as I'm sure you can imagine, was a major job for us.  Luckily Has and I were on the same page when it came how we wanted our wedding to be captured.  We are confident that the photographer we have chosen, Deborah Stott, will match if not beat our expectations.

We want to place disposable cameras on each of our dining tables for our guests to take their own candid shots of the day.  (There are a few taken on Suzie's wedding day that make me look naked!  Not intended I can assure you, let's hope they never make it on Facebook!)
Having spoken to friends who did this a lot of photos end up being either unusable (turn the flash on!) not printable (Who does that belong to!) or of very similar things (I believe Suzie has around 12 photos of the lamb shank we all ate for our main course!)  But some of them really do turn out good.  People pull funny faces or poses because they know they don't have to be on their best behaviour, it's not like when the professional photographer is shooting you, disposable cameras give you the licence to be silly.  That's what I want!

So how do you get good quality silly and fun photographs of your guests?  No. I don't mean plying them with alcohol, although I'm sure that helps!  I'm talking about a photo booth.

People "in the know" are predicting photo booths as the big trend of 2010 and I can see why.  A private space for your guests to leave you with a funny reminder of them on your day.  Most packages come with the option of your guests being able to print two sets.  One they can keep and another for them to stick in your guest book along with a note.  It's such a simple yet great idea!

Photo from Jasmine Star

Of course these don't come cheap, the cheapest quote I've found so far is around £500 for 3 hours. Yikes!  A definite on our "nice to have" list!

Of course there is always the do it yourself approach.  You'd need to ask your photographer or friend if they mind helping out but the results can be fabulous!

Photo from Ben Godkin

These photos from Emma Case prove my point.

Fantastic!!