IPAD PHOTO BOOTH

Photo booths can be great. Really can get the party moving, and allow great little goofy pictures for the Bride & Groom to enjoy for years. The downside is that they're expensive. If you have an unlimited budget...go for it. If not here is an alternative.

Ipad Photo Booth
I photographed a wedding in Charlotte last year and the wedding planner had an ingenious idea. About an hour into the reception after the guests had eaten and the DJ was just really getting going, she announced that the photo booth was open for business. Photo Booth? I had been through the entire reception area and didn't see a photo booth. What the ???? There was a small room in the back of the reception hall. She had mounted an ipad to a wooden frame  threw up a background and added a small can light (about $30 bucks) to the top of the frame. The Bride had gone to a dollar store and got a bunch of boa's, funny hats, glasses and a chalk board.  The guests had so much fun with this. Instead of getting a filmstrip (which a lot of people lose at a regular photo booth) they were able to email the picture to themselves right after taking it. Another advantage is that as the photo booth wound down, the props ended up on the dance floor turning the reception into an adhoc mardi gras ball. Easy to setup. For guests to email pictures you'd have to have the ipad with 4g. The wifi edition wouldn't work unless you had access at the venue. You'd also have to get a  photo booth app which is free or at little cost depending on which one you get. What I really liked about this was that it didn't take a lot of time away from the dance floor. People just kinda flowed in and out. Great idea.
     Another advantage to this is that you own the props. I've seen commercial photo booths where the boa's and hats etc., look like they've been used at a 1000 other events. If you buy your own stuff you know it's clean. You don't even have to take it home with you...your guests will take care of that! If you want to know more about the just google Ipad Photo Booth, their are a ton of websites that show this w/ a lot of different mounting options. You can even get a wireless printer, but I think that would slow up the process. You want your friends celebrating with you and not fiddling with a printer all night. The best reason of all perhaps is this is a great excuse to buy or upgrade an Ipad.