Add a sense of childhood nostalgia to your wedding reception and send a keepsake home with all of your guests, by renting a photo booth!

For the last two years photo booths have been increasing in popularity at weddings, with the advent of the digital photo booth. While they will never replace a professional photography (just try dancing your first dance in a traditional photo booth to get some pictures) a photo booth at your reception will add fun, be a conversation piece and can be enjoyed by everyone!

There are two types of true photo booths.

The traditional or classic photo booth which uses chemicals to develop actual photographic paper with four pictures on it. The classic photo booth is slow to produce the strips, anywhere from 90 seconds to 7 minutes, which decreases the amount of photos and times the guests can enjoy the experience. The classic weighs anywhere between 300 to 900 pounds so transportation cost is a factor.

The digital photo booth is the modernized version of the classic. Portable, quick to set up and just as easy to use. Digital photo booths offer a lot of options their classic cousins just don’t have. Not only can you have the traditional vertical stack of four images, taken one after another, but you can have the sheet customized to reflect you or your wedding! The digital photo booth also offers the ability to print out a post card shape strip instead of the traditional vertical.

Is there a picture that you or some of your guests would love to have a 4×6, 5×7 or 8×10 made of? Most digital photo booths store the images for reprinting later on. Some rental companies offer montages, set to music of the images or the original digital files, on DVD.

Another advantage of digital photo booths is the ability to share with everyone on the outside what is happening on the inside! Some booths offer the ability to play back as a montage all the images taken as soon as they are taken. So you can see that crazy face your best friend made before the image is even printed to paper.

What to look for in a photo booth.

With the popularity of the photo booth increasing lots of people are calling things photo booths that are not a photo booth! We all know what a photo booth looks like, every time we go to the mall there is one there. They are a box with a camera on one wall, a small bench on the other and most can fit 4 people comfortably. You step in, sit down and pull close the privacy curtain and hit the button to start the pictures. Limited space is half the fun! In college I and my girlfriends decided to see if we could get 15 of us into one picture in a two person photo booth. We managed to get 8 heads and a half in one picture. (Wish I could find my copy of that strip today.) That is what I consider a photo booth, not only are photo booths where you throw inhibitions to the wind and get funky, but where the challenge can be getting everyone in the picture!

But today, to make a quick buck people are throwing the label photo booth on just about anything. Last year I saw a  section of pipe and drape (nothing boothy about it) against a wall and opposite it a camera hooked to a cheap inkjet printer and a  photographer stood there and told everyone to smile. Not a photo booth.

Then there was the ad I saw recently touting the “photo booth that can fit as many people as you want”. Once again it was pipe and drape, but this time at least in the shape of a rectangle and again a camera on a tripod with a cable run to a printer… Blah! Not a photo booth.

Then there is a company offering the “Open Air Photo Booth”, two boxes stacked, one with a camera, the other a printer, no “booth”. Just slightly above the camera on a tripod.

So if you are going to spend $1500 renting a photo booth, I recommend making sure it’s a real booth, hard sided rectangular with a bench and curtain and not something that should be hanging from your windows. Oh and the photo trigger at your touch, not someone standing outside with a laptop telling you to go “cheese” and clicking a mouse…

Digital photo booths don’t use chemicals and photo paper, but any printer that can interface with the software. So this means the photo strip can be printed by a laser, inject or dye-sub printer. Talking with a few photographers and doing some internet research it looks like a dye-sub printer will be the closest experience to chemical printing. Dye-sub is long lasting, comes the closest to looking like photo paper and truly prints a 2×6 strip of paper if you want the classic feel. All other options must be manually trimmed to feel like the classic strip. Also the dye-subs are very fast, approximately 30 seconds.

As with any service or rental you have on your wedding day at Notre Dame, make sure you have a contract and that the vendor has liability insurance. Then step inside, pull the curtain close and get FUNKY and have fun!

Heads up everyone, postage rates increase again on My 11, 2009 to $0.44! So if you are getting married later in the year, you may want to get your invites out before then!

When your wedding is over you all you will have left is your mate, your wedding band, your photos and your wedding video! Oh and the gown, but ladies, the days of your daughter wearing the your gown for her wedding are over (if you say no that isn’t true, did you wear your mom’s gown?).  Twenty plus years from now it will either be a Good Will donation or cut up into flower girl dresses.   So why do I emphasize the wedding video? Because so few brides and grooms have a wedding video. Over the last several weeks I have seen many in the wedding media offering the advice that the wedding video is the first thing that can be cut from the budget in these tough economic times. I say NO!

This is the biggest regret you can have. The most treasured items that my parents have from their wedding for my sister and me is the 8mm film footage my uncle shot. It is the only place way I can view my grandfather who was a very fun loving person, do his crazy dance with my mother. It was the only time that he allowed anyone to record him “getting down” as he used to say. No picture can do his crazy dance justice and our family only have this one piece of film to see it, from this very special ocassion. So just imagine these special little events happening at your wedding and reception, can a photo really do them justice?

Do not skimp on the photos or the video! Skimp on the cake, cut the floral budget and have flowers on half the tables and candle votives on the others. There are many things that can be skimped on in a wedding to open up your budget for video, but don’t skimp on your memories!

And that brings me to the video I found on my favorite wedding cinematographer’s site. From Allure Films here is what I’m sure will  be a treasured memory for the bride and groom; Grandma performing with the band the first dance song! What a special time for the bride and groom this had to be! The wedding took place at the Notre Dame Basilica of the Sacred Heart and the reception followed at the lovely Palais Royale.

-Amy

I love chocolate and what a better combination can there be but brownie and chocolate for wedding favors! These brownie pops come in several designs that are just delightful. And Beau Coup will overnight them for your wedding reception, so that they are fresh.

We are starting a new feature here at Notre Dame Weddings, the featured wedding professionals. Over the next few months we will be featuring articles about various wedding professionals or services around town. I am happy to say our first featured wedding professional is Cynthia Basker and Celebrated Events, the absolute best wedding coordinator / planner working Notre Dame weddings.

Celebrated Events

Established in 1990 by Cynthia Basker, Celebrated Events is the South Bend areas most recognized wedding & event planning firm. A leader in the market, Cynthia and her team at Celebrated Events is committed to producing events that are unique and intimate, regardless of size and location.

Nationally recognized and a published author, Cynthia has been a speaker at ABC and The Special Event, among others. Locally she is exclusively recommended by Michaelangelos, The Event Company as the planner to work with along with being on the referral lists of the University of Notre Dame, Hilton Garden Inn, Palais Royale, Marriott, Century Center and many more.

It is Celebrated Events’ promise that in working with Cynthia and her team, you will have the event you have always imagined. They will guide you through each phase of planning your event, always keeping your vision their primary focus. They will provide you with a neutral forum upon which all of your ideas, hopes and dreams can be expressed, interpreted and ultimately incorporated into your event. They strive to create a culture of calm in the midst of the chaos and anxiety that can surround planning your wedding. Planning stylish affairs is not just a tag line for Celebrated Events, it is their hallmark. Combining years of experience with a creative vision enables them to create amazing weddings and events that are the foundation of their reputation.

Their consulting services menu includes:

Comprehensive Planning and Production: From inception to completion, we will provide complete event orchestration. No detail will be overlooked.

Initial Planning Consultation: Designed to give the bride everything needed to begin effective wedding planning, two planning sessions will be scheduled to determine budget, style and appropriate vendor referrals. We will also offer suggestions for the planning process and answers to immediate concerns.

Final Planning and Directing: Beginning one month prior to the event, we’ll set up a seris of meeting to gather information, determine any any facets that may have been overlooked, problem solve any roadblocks or concerns, develop a timeline, and finalize vendor arrangements and on site supervision of rehearsal and wedding day. This service is designed to allow the bride to transition the event fully into our hands.

Hourly Rate: We may be retained on an hourly basis. Time will be kept track of by quarter hour increments. This is the most common way our clients use our services, allowing the bride flexibility in how much or how little planning assistance is utilized.

Services may be combined to create a custom packages.