Weddingbee Blog

I was going to save this post for later, but a tweet from Mrs. Peony this morning has prompted me to seize the day and share some of our wedding day deets!

I’d never seen the trend of having photobooths at weddings until I started reading wedding blogs, but I was immediately taken with the idea. I love getting my picture “drawn” at those dinky photobooths they have at Chuck E. Cheese, so what could be better than a wedding photobooth?

Of course, my first choice would have been to rent a booth, but with a $5,000 budget for the whole wedding, that was completely out of the question. My photographer didn’t offer a photobooth option, either, so I was out of luck for a booth like Mrs. Robin’s.

My tech skills aren’t the greatest, so I knew setting up a booth with a digital camera and printer would be a job for my dad and/or teenage brother. Unfortunately, my brother had some serious health issues come up in the months before the wedding that kept my family occupied from March until mid-May. Then preparations for his high school graduation were in full swing and, well, all the projects my family had promised to help with kinda fell by the wayside.

Faced with having to work on the fauxtobooth by myself, I decided to go the simplest route possible.

I purchased a vintage tablecloth off Etsy to use as a backdrop, and the night before the wedding I set my MacBook and its charger amidst the piles of items to be hauled to the wedding the next day. In a move that made me pull a facepalm later, I also hastily scrawled directions on a piece of cardstock with a black Sharpie. I wish I’d taken the time to make the sign look prettier!

I’d forgotten to mention this detail to my DOC (whom I’ll tell you about later), so I also wrote a note on the side of the cardboard box in which I’d placed the tablecloth and the charger. I think it said something like “Photobooth — please hang tablecloth as backdrop using twine, turn on MacBook and open Photobooth application. Thank you!”

When I arrived at the reception, the fauxtobooth was set up and people were snapping away, taking their own pics! OK, a few people did tend to monopolize the computer, but we got some really great pictures from people I never would have expected.

FIL and MIL Bunny and family — I am so glad I get to be a part of it!

The groomsman who caught the garter. Classay!

My cuz-in-law, aunt and cousin

Of course, Mr. Bunny and I had to get a shot, too!
(all of the pics above were taken after someone moved the backdrop! Oops!)

If I could do it over, the sign isn’t the only thing I would change. David Cline, a 19-year-old college student, wrote an automator script that prompted guests for their names, snapped three photobooth pics, lined them up and printed them on a 4X6 photo printer for his sister’s wedding. I would have given anything to have this on my wedding day! He’ll let you download his script for a Paypal donation of “whatever you feel you can contribute” — a bargain, if you ask me.

I don’t at all regret going the DIY route for our photobooth. We got some great pics, and the only price I paid was $13 for a tablecloth that I love and can still use at home! David’s script would have made it so much cooler, though!

Are you a fan of the photobooth trend? If so, will you (or did you) rent, get one with your photography package, or DIY?