I’m a photograph junky.  I’ve always loved taking photos when I’ve traveled and have even worked as a studio photographer in the past.  So when it came to photographs at our wedding…  the more the merrier.  We hired a lovely trio of photographers, whom I’ve got all the faith in the world in to capture those “wedding moments”, but I wanted more.

I began scouring the endless wedding websites out there and discovered a couple of great options:
♥Encourage guests to share their photographs
♥Photo Booths

The first option, encouraging guests to share their photos is easy.  Set up accounts on Picasa and Flikr, print out some cards with the passwords on them, add a tutorial to our wedsite and Shazam!  Photo sharing made easy.

Our Photo Sharing Cards
Images by Cotton Bud

A photo booth, however much it is a fun idea, is also quite pricy to rent.  We’re talking in the $1000 range, in the northeast.  Yikes!  Sorry, but $1000 isn’t anywhere near in my budget for something fun, that is far from a requirement for a reception.  Hmph. But I don’t give up that easily.  I could always have a faux-to booth, right?  I’ve seen some stunning ideas with macbooks and printers and remote controlled shooting.  Ugh, that still seemed like too much more work (and money) for us to commit to such an unnecessary extra.

But wait, there’s more!

I seem to always find some sort of alternative to a project, if I want it bad enough. I don’t mind if things aren’t high tech or if they blend a few different ideas together.  My solution to this photo booth that I desperately wanted, was such a blending of ideas.

Remember those disposable cameras that were such a hot item in the ‘90s at weddings?  They have those pretty silver bells or golden rings embossed on them, with the couples name and date and are sitting at every table for guests to snap candids of each other? Well, I thought, “Why can’t I use those in our photo booth?”  Surely, there are enough people at a wedding that guests could snap each others’ photos in the “booth”.  But those silver bells and golden rings didn’t quite fit into our style.  A bit of surfing on the web produced a wonderful website with a large variety of options – www.customcameracollection.com.  We opted for their Camp Bugs style, and naturally personalized them with our wedding info.  The best part of this website is that you can include developing expenses up front.  After the wedding, we can pop the cameras in their included pre-paid envelopes and toss them in the mailbox.  When we return home after our mini-moon, they’ll be all developed waiting for us!

Source

But what’s a photo booth without props?  I’ve adored photos (like the one below) of friends and family framing themselves for the photo op.  I had to include a pretty wooden frame I had in our photo booth, but didn’t think it would be enough.  After a trip to Dollar Tree and our local party store, I came up with a bag full of silly props for only $20.  I can’t wait to take a picture in our booth with the fez hat on!

Source

Our Props!
Photo by Cotton Bud

I’d say, for the less than $50 total I’ve spent, we will be just as happy with the results from our booth, as we would have been spending a thousand dollars on the real thing.

How are you capturing all of your special wedding moments?  Will you be having a photo booth or some other quirky activity at your reception?