Wedding Recap: Photobooth fun!

I don't care what you do, if it all possible, the one thing I highly encourage you to have at your wedding is a photobooth.  I know it's trendy and overdone nowadays but it is only because your guests absolutely LOVE it!  Whether you make your own 'faux-to-booth' or rent one like we did from a company like Cheesy Photobooths, it is the best investment you'll make for entertaining your guests.  And it also serves as a great favor for them to remember your special day by.  I personally loved it because it also served dual purpose as part of our guestbook so we'd have a pic of all of our guests from our special day. 

But seriously, the entertainment value alone is phenomenal and ours was packed all night long.  So without further ado, here are just some of the many, many different types and styles of people and photos we discovered after browsing through our photobooth photos:

You'll get people of all ages:

 20 Somethings:

 Teens:

 

Moms (mine and my sister's mother-in-law):

Parents (of the groom and their friend):

Families:

Even sleeping babies!

By the way, how freaking cute is our banner at the bottom of the pictures?

And of course, you'll get the silly photos and crazy shots:

Little Miss and her dad:

The kids were in that thing all night long - like 20 times each! 

(Our Junior Groomsmen, Mr Fix It's nephew)

My crazy cousin, the flower girl

My best friend from high school who I invited 5 days before the wedding!

I love this pic in the top left of my cousins with the afro - so genius!

And you'll get the pics to see how many people you can fit inside for one picture:

This one is me and my bible study girls I lead:

Me and all my bridesmaids (and my cousin jumped in at the very end)!

My team of coordinators even jumped in at the end of the night:

For some reason, everyone thinks it's necessary to kiss and/or stick your tongue out in photobooths:

Truly disgusting...I don't need to see that!

You'll get sweet shots:

Me and Little Miss

And of course there's "What the hell is going on in this photo" shots:

Mr Fix It thought we were gonna get busy in there...silly boy!

And then finally, the "They were obviously hammered by this point" shots:

And then there's the random "Why are there totally different people in each one of these?" shots

I felt horrible about this one.  These are Mr Fix It's friends.  I didn't see anyone in line and didn't know they were inside and I barged in on them to take the pic of me and my girls right when they were kissing.  What a horrible selfish bride!  I apologized profusely and they were totally cool about it :)

Mr Fix It likes to think that he can raise his 'pimp hand' to me.  He thinks it's hilarious...not really:

But my favorite of the entire night was my wedding coordinator's husband,

 who brilliantly came up with this little beauty:

Now granted, not every single guest got in the photobooth which was a bummer.  Some left early because of kids or early mornings the next day.  Some said they were in line or on their way to the booth and then got sidetracked or ended up having to come in for the grand entrance, dinner, cake cutting, etc.  To try to offset this, we had our company set up the booth and split our hours.  We had the booth open at 4:30 and the ceremony was at 5 or 5:30 pm.  They shut down for an hour during the ceremony and then reopened from 6:30 to 11:30 during cocktails, dinner and dancing.  We booked them for a total of 6 hours and it was packed the whole time! 

I only wish I would have taken more advantage of the booth myself :(  Like much that was going on that day, I just never found enough time to focus on what I wanted and do all I wanted to.  (sigh)

So, what are your thoughts?  Did/Are you having a photobooth?  When/How do you plan to incorporate it?

Today's Tip:   Be sure to have lots of props on hand for a photobooth and set them out clearly and obviously. (I bought most of mine the day after Halloween at a costume store for a huge discount.)  I also had a dry erase board (couldn't find a chalk board I liked) and markers for people to write messages on and somehow it did not get used in any photos!  I think it ended up in the kids' play area or someone used the wrong pen on it and ruined it.  Have a photobooth attendant there all night instructing guests on what to do, encouraging them to use props, etc.  And tell them in advance about things like a chalk board or whatever.  Be sure to have your DJ or emcee announce the booth is open as well and remind guests to go use it!

(We did have an attendant who came from the rental company but I don't think that I told him about the dry erase board and I was too caught up in everything else to realize it until later.) 

Wanna see that video from our ceremony again?

So for those of you that were in attendance at our wedding, you'll probably remember a little video that we played just before I made my entrance for the ceremony?  Well, in case you missed anything (and for those of you who didn't get to attend), here's the full video to view again!  And below is some background on how it all came together. 

Part One

Part Two

The part that says "Please Rise" and then faded to black was the exact moment where I began my walk down the aisle to the remaining part of the song that plays.

The video was a long work in progress which I started back in July before the wedding.  I searched YouTube for creative wedding montages.  Ya know the ones that they play at weddings now where you see pictures of the bride and groom from childhood through the current time played along to music selections.  Well, I wanted to do that, but with a twist that would truly entertain our guests. 

I came across a film student who had made a unique montage for her own wedding and posted it on YouTube.  People had contacted her asking if she would do one for their own receptions and she informed me that it would be like $500 or $600 for an 8 minute video.  Now for those of you who have experience with me and my computer skills, I love to create montage videos as a hobby. I have made videos of my daughter's All Star Softball season, her soccer season and even edited my sister's wedding video.  So there was no way I was gonna pay that much money to basically use the same script she wrote out and modify it to fit me and John.

The only thing I needed to figure out was how to incorporate the movie star clips and how to find a voice over actor to narrate for us.  Well, by the amazing blessing of the Lord, it all fell into place.

I did a google search and spent a lot of time searching for videos of stars on YouTube and then figured out how to download the videos to my own computer.  You can do that through Mozilla Firefox internet browser. 

Then I did a google search for voiceover actors and found a web site where VO actors can post demos of their work.  I found this amazing actor who had the exact voice I wanted.  And if it sounded familiar to you, it's because he is the voice of Divorce Court and also has done tons of movie trailers, promos, and is the voice of some Fox sports shows. 

Well, he was a blessing in disguise because when I contacted him via e-mail with the script and told him I was a single mom on a budget, he graciously offered his services to me at a ridiculous discount!  And then he turned around and e-mailed me back the audio files of the narration within less than 2 or 3 days!  So many, many thanks goes out to Jimmy Hodson for all of his time and generosity and a special praise to Jesus for helping lead me to him!

And then I shared the idea with John.  At first, he thought it was dumb and didn't like how I planned to incorporate it into the ceremony.  As a matter of fact, my pastor, Lyle was really concerned (and so was my DJ, Justin from Generations Entertainment) when I shared my idea of how it would lead into the song that would play during my walk down the aisle.  But once I showed the video to my DJ's, they said it was their favorite part of the wedding.  And then after the ceremony, while we were signing the marriage license, Lyle sat in the room with us and told me "You know, I was really worried about how that video was going to work with the ceremony and how long it was going to be, but I gotta tell you - it was really great and worked so well."

Yeah, I am patting myself on the back with this one.  I loved it and stuck to my plans even when everyone else didn't get my 'vision.'

So what did you think?  Did you like it?  What was your favorite part?  And no, I do not plan on going into business to do this...it's just a fun hobby.