1. GET CREATIVE WITH THE BACKDROP
The backdrop is the focal point of your photo booth, so you want to make sure it’s eye-catching without being too distracting. Think ribbons, curtains, banners, balloons, or chalkboard walls with cute phrases. You can keep it as simple or get as fancy as you’d like; you just need to give guests a designated area that will look cute in photos — and on its own when guests aren’t using it!2. LIGHT IT UP
PROVIDE AS MUCH LIGHT AS POSSIBLE. Instead of fiddling with any kind of camera flash setup, just make sure your DIY photo booth area is very, very, very well lit. I’m talking strangely, glowingly, bright. It can be in a well-lit separate room or just partitioned off—but make sure you provide lots and lots of light. If your reception is during the day, then this won’t be a problem at all. If you need to bring in lamps and plug them in—do it. (For an easy and decent lighting hack, you can use one of those cheap dorm lamps with any bulbs that say “daylight” on the package or have a color temperature of between 5000K and 6500K for a super bright light that mimics daylight. Both are available for cheap at most big box stores and it should say right on the box what the temperature of the bulb is.) Oh and the lighting doesn’t have to be boring white light either. You can have colored light—just make sure the area is still very well lit. Or you can go a little more professional look with actual studio lights like these and make it feel a little less DIY.3. PROVIDE PLENTY OF PROPS
If you don’t already have a photography prop box, now is the perfect opportunity to put one together. Grab an old crate or basket and fill it with oversized glasses, stick-on mustaches, cowboy hats, feather boas, whiteboard or chalkboard conversation bubbles, and more. The more props in your box, the more likely your guests will pose for multiple pictures, experimenting with different looks and different groups of friends or family members.4. SET UP IN A HIGHLY VISIBLE LOCATION
The whole point of a photo booth is to capture all of your guests in a totally informal, seriously fun way, so you’ll want to make sure all your guests can see it no matter where they are at the reception. If possible, don’t shove your photo booth in a corner or set up in a separate room. There will be so many other things happening at your reception and, if guests don’t see it, they’ll simply forget about it. Think of this as another focal point for your design and set it up in an area that everyone can see but still gives people plenty of space to take individual, small group, or large group photos. Also, don’t forget to set up a directional sign pointing guests straight to the booth!5. MAKE AN EVENT HASHTAG
Regardless of which setup you decide upon, don’t forget to create an event hashtag! Whether or not you’re providing prints immediately, it is likely that everyone is going to take their own pictures with their phones and immediately upload those images to their social media accounts. Make sure your hashtag is clearly printed on a sign near your photo booth setup to allow all of your guests to share and see all of the pictures taken at the photo booth and event itself.6. MAKE IT A SELFIE STATION
To keep your DIY photo booth even more simple, let your guests use their own phones to snap selfies. Guests are going to be taking selfies all night as it is, so they might as well do it with fun props in front of a fab backdrop! We highly recommend providing at least one selfie stick to help capture large group shots. You could even take it one step further with a selfie stick stand to give guests a little more room to play and pose!7. LET EVERYONE KNOW HOW TO SHARE THEIR PHOTOS
Last (finally), but certainly not least, you need some way of sharing the photos that are taken for the event. One option is to have a printer available that could provide a print and that instant gratification. This option will of course be added expense and also additional complexity in the form of things that could go wrong. If the printer goes down, then suddenly the photo booth person is the bad guy…Perhaps a better option would be to upload the images to an on-line service and provide a link that would allow access and downloads. Most people would like to have the digital version of their images anyway, and they could make prints on their own, if they choose. There are photo booth software and applications options that can be used for not only the instant viewing of images, but also provide a means for guests to email their images to themselves right from the event. If you use Dropbox, then a special link just for the photo booth images could be set up prior to the event and photos can be automatically uploaded as they are taken (provided that you have internet access). Guests can access the link (and their photos) and save them to their smartphone or even share them on social media. These are just a few options for sharing, so you will need to decide which works best for you and your workflow.
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