Weddingbee Blog

We want a photobooth at our wedding. One of the first questions we asked all the photographers we interviewed was if they could help us with that. I wanted someone to be stationed there throughout the reception (or most of it, anyway) to take the photos.

We haven’t thought too hard about many of the details of it yet, but I just bought some of our first props!

I was so excited to show everyone that I took bathroom-mirror shots instead of waiting for Cinnamon Buns to come home!

Two of the theatres in town have a joint costume shop. They both have their own staff, but the actual costume room and the storage (I think) is joint. They had a costume sale on the weekend, so I ran over on my lunch break to see what was available. I grabbed these two hats for a dollar each!

The bonnet needs some ribbons sewn on—currently it has the little loopies inside for you to bobby pin it to your head (I just balanced it for the photo), but that is too fussy for a photobooth. I’m going to sew some ribbon on each side so people can tie it on. The other hat just made me laugh!

I’ve had this idea that as we’re having a book-themed wedding, we should have a book-themed photobooth. I’d love to have all the props be slightly book-y; there wouldn’t be rules like “You have to make a face like a literary character or you’re banned!”—just a subtle bookishness to the props. I think the bonnet is very Dickens. The second hat just makes me think of an eccentric professor (with a mustache) wearing a smoking jacket in his book-lined study. What I was really searching for at the sale was a deerstalker cap—AKA the Sherlock Holmes hat. (By the way, the hat doesn’t appear in the books; it was one of the first actors to portray him that used it. Same goes for the big white pipe!) I’m still hoping to find one of those.

We will have mustaches on sticks—lots of good literary characters have mustaches. John Watson, Hercule Poirot, and various wizards come to mind immediately.

There is another prop that I think I will make myself, but it was inspired by this design by MaroDesigns on Etsy:

Source

Can’t guess? Imagine if I were to attach a lightning-bolt-shaped piece of stiff felt to the top of the nosepiece. Instant Harry Potter!

Theatres are a great resource for costumes. You can’t just call up and be let into their storeroom, but most theatres have clearout garage-sale-type events some time or another. They’re probably more likely to happen in May/June or whenever the season ends, or around Halloween. A nice polite e-mail, asking to be notified when they next have one (if it is something they do) couldn’t go amiss.

Is theming the photobooth props going too far? Any recommendations for other props?