There is no question that having a photo booth at your wedding is a great idea. In fact, its downright trendy, but what value would you place on the rental of this archaic Polaroid device. Yes, we believe that nostalgia is worth something, but is it worth $1500 for one day? Yeah… we didn’t think so. If you are a little crafty and a little techy, you can create your own automated wedding photo booth for little to no money. The only requirements are a laptop, a photo printer and a creative backdrop.
If you own a Macbook, you won’t even need to use an external camera. Also, since the computer comes preloaded with Photo Booth, one option is to simply use this software to compose the images. The route that we would recommend is to check out the enhanced Photo Booth software created by David Cline. Here is a link to his blog: <sevenEightcline. What David has done is automated the process so that guests are prompted to type in their own name, which is then stored in a pre-assigned file on your computer. He has also re-oriented the photos so that they are aligned vertically like traditional photo booth pictures. If you own a computer that runs Windows, check out SeeMonkey. This software does essentially the same thing as the Photo Booth program on the Mac. The only difference…it costs $150 for the software.
If you are looking for higher quality images, there are two routes that you can take. If you have a DSLR camera, you can use your own equipment and with the addition of a wireless remote, you can capture images without the need of a photographer. Another option is to ask your photographer to set up a photo booth inspired area at your wedding. Your photographer will be able to adjust the lighting properly so that everything looks just right. Don’t forget to get creative with the backdrop and make sure to bring some props for people to use. Here are some examples of professional photo booths. 
