Our (silly, fun) homemade photo booth

Oh how I love old fashioned photo booths! And oh how renting one was not in our budget.

We love photos, we love taking photos, and we really wanted some sort of photo fun at our reception. So we researched and brainstormed.

We came up with an alternative to the old fashioned booth, and created our own photo booth area. It consisted of a 3-sided structure designed and built by Patrick, covered in a fabric backdrop that was sewn together by his mom. We bought a couple of work lights to light the area. In front of the "booth" we set up a digital camera on a tripod, which was hooked up to a monitor for photo viewing and a photo printer. We had a guest book nearby along with adhesive, pens and markers.

Next to the booth we set out a basket with various props and a chalkboard for message-writing.

We asked Pat's very creative and tech-savvy cousins to man the station (they are in 5th and 8th grade, and they were the perfect pick for this job). They asked if they could bring their "silly hat collection" and we said ohmygosh YES! We asked the techie husband of one of my friends/bridesmaids to head to the reception early to set up the booth. (You see, this project required a lot of help from many willing and able parties.)

The booth was a huge hit, and everyone loved the silly hats (they made their way into quite a few of our wedding photos!). We have over 100 fabulous shots of our guests: all ages, surprising groupings, poses wacky and demure. Not everyone was up for the booth, but those that were really had fun with it.

You can see the full collection in the set on our wedding Flickr page.