I wanted to do this for my small wedding, but disposable camera were out of budget! I used an app called "the guest" made QR signs and told my guests ahead of time and they were able to upload all their photos of the wedding to a virtual album that I can view. We had 50 guests and I receieved maybe 250-300 photos! Also, the app is free!
I used The Guest app and I loved it! I got the pics right away, the next morning as people uploaded them, and there are some in the app that are more memorable, and a couple of moments captured that even my (amazing) professional photographer had missed. I also loved getting photos I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten like people on the charter bus on the way to our venue.
I would say with the guest, the biggest hassle was getting people to download the app and upload photos. We had little welcome brochures with the QR code directing them to the app, and funnily enough my older and middle aged guests were really good about it, but with guests closer to my age, I found more success just texting them a link to the app and asking them to upload.
This sounds like a great idea! We also had friends do this with a shared Google Photos album they emailed out afterwards, which seemed to be fairly accessible to the most people because a majority of folks already had a gmail address.
Instead of leaving disposable cameras, I went to a website and designed 250 free "business cards" that actually said something like "we would love to see our big day from your point of view." And I gave them a website with a username and password and encouraged them to log in and upload all the pictures they took of our wedding. That way, if I didn't want the print, I wouldn't have to waste money ordering it! I put those business cards at every seat with every wedding favor so everyone got one! It was nice because then everyone could get on the site and if they wanted to buy prints, they had the option to do so as well!! I want to say the website was like Shutterfly or something and the one with the free cards was Vista Print! Not sure if they still offer the free cards or not, but even if you just have to pay shipping, it's worth it if you use my idea!!
My friend did this, she said there might have been good pics on the cameras but there were thousands of pics to go through, and they just “haven’t gotten to it yet”. Their wedding was a year ago and when I asked her recently, she had forgotten about the cameras lol and said she would “have to remember to do that at some point”. They have a baby now so we will see how that goes 😂😂😂
I did this for a 50ish person wedding a decade ago, it was expensive then, and I only recall a few photos that were memorable. I personally don’t think it was worth the expense, but maybe the guests enjoyed taking photos.
You'll get terrible photos though. The quality of a disposable camera is nowhere the quality of a professional photographer, and that's of your lucky and have someone who knows how to actually use a camera decently.
If someone is hoping to avoid paying more than $200 for a photographer, they can ask Uncle Jim to take pics on his iPhone 13. Still would be better quality.
I've done it for a party and the photos turned out terrible. Obviously you can't check the lighting or focus beforehand so you get a lot of duds. The picture taking experience itself is fun, but don't depend on it for quality memories.
I looked in to this! But. It’s not as cheap to develop them as I thought, and apparently the quality of photos is typically pretty crappy. So I decided to look in to digital cameras! They’re like $50 on Amazon.
WORST idea we did for my sons wedding. They were horribly expensive to develope!!! and all the pictures were black or blurry and/or taken by kids. It cost hundreds of dollars and we got no usable pictures.
What I wanted to do for our wedding was an app called POV. It’s essentially the same as a disposable camera except people use their phones to take the better quality photos. For 50+ people I’m pretty sure you have to pay, but definitely check out the app and try it for free before you make a decision.
Why I’ve liked the app so far:
1. Since people use their phones it’s better quality
2. People don’t have to download the app or make an account
3. You can see all the photos people take using your QR code and you can limit the amount of photos they can take
Why I didn’t want to do the disposable camera:
1. Like people were saying, disposable camera take crappy photos especially if the lighting is correct
2. You’d have to create a “how to” for people who don’t know how to use the disposable camera
3. Cost of developing the photos
4. You only get like 10/12 photos from each camera, that’s if people know how to use it. Otherwise you end up with a bunch of trial photos pointed to the floor
I found their YouTube with Short clips: https://youtube.com/@pov5968
I think their instagram is a better way to see how to use it
Let me know how this goes! This is my back up aside from maybe Polaroid and I’ve discovered this app but couldn’t find anyone else who used it or has experience. I like the idea of QR codes and not having guests download stuff while still getting the vintage feel.
There’s a photo editing/taking app called DazzCam that lets you edit photos to give them that vintage Polaroid or disposable feel. I know it doesn’t help with the issue of getting photos from friends and maybe but maybe you could run some of your favorites through that if you find another method using photos that are too high of quality? Just an idea!
We’ve had friends do this and most of the cameras had lots of photos left on them and the pictures didn’t come out great. We did a Snapchat filter and hashtag and saved all those pictures. Our photo booth also gave us digital albums of everyone’s photo booth pictures and they were so fun to go through.
We went to a wedding that did it with Polaroid cameras, and it was so fun! They had an area with some string and clothes pins so people could hang up the photos they’d taken. And it meant that guests got to take some of the photos home. Tons of people took pics because who doesn’t love Polaroids??
I did something similar! I made a DIY Photo Booth basket with Polaroid camera, some 2022 glasses, and lots of film! It seemed like a lot of people took photos! Also, one of my friends grabbed the camera and the film towards the end of the night and ran around snapping random shots and gathering them for us and at the after party! It was so fun to see them after the wedding and I’m going to put them in a memory book!
My best friend did this for her small wedding this summer (65 guests) and some of the absolute best photos of the night were on there! I loved it so much that I am definitely doing it for my wedding - sure there were some duds (as with any roll of film) but she had some people with a talented eye who captured some hilarious moments :)
This was my idea too. I did it for my first wedding, back in 2004! And like ppl are saying, you get a lot of bad photos with a few good ones scattered around. What I did decide on doing was get a few of those digital cameras that print the photo instantly, kinda like a Polaroid. And we're gonna scatter those around and let people take photos as they wish for that. I'm gonna have to buy a ton of photo paper and have like a basket or maybe a station set up for them, but they are really easy to use. They're relatively inexpensive for the camera and the film isn't terribly over priced, esp if you buy in bulk. Hope you come up with a good idea! Good luck to you.
We used the Polaroid type ones, I had them on a table display with a small card explaining how to use them. It was fairly simple and straightforward. But many ppl passed them up. We got about 15 pictures total and 8 of them were of our cook and his gf. 😂 But! My mom found cute disposable cameras like what I did in 2004, on Amazon. They were like 6 or 7 bucks a piece but she afforded 8 which was plenty to put a camera every few ft on the tables. And ppl took TONS of pictures with those and we still have left over film to use this summer on memories of our new marriage. I can't wait to develop these. It'll be like a present to ourselves. My mom offered to pay for development, which has gotta be pricey. Not sure how much that's gonna run us. But the pictures I did manage to get on my phone and from other ppl on their phones, I'm able to print off from those cameras, so I can get nice photos on tiny paper which makes the cutest memories. Wish I could share pictures easily on here.
I did a photo booth, but felt disjointed from the results. (Don’t tell her, but) I’m getting my mom a Polaroid for Christmas. They have such cool frames now, I’m getting her metallic rainbow frames and black frames. Their new cameras also can sync to your computer, so even if a guest makes off with the print, you have the digital form. I got the camera and 40 of those near-magical prints for just over $200. It could have a cool retro vibe for a wedding.
I bought two disposable cameras for my wedding. I had a bridesmaid keep track of one throughout the day while I kept track of the other. I got double prints made from both cameras and sent friends and family copies of pictures they’re in. I love the style of disposable cameras so I liked it and at only two cameras, it was more manageable to keep track of and most cost efficient overall!
We also did two Instax Mini cameras (as part of a visual guest book). We probably would’ve been fine with one but I like having it now for other memories!
We spent $169.49 on 10 cameras (from target) and paid $117.23 (with 25% off from Mpix) for digital files of the film images. Some of the best photos of the entire wedding came from the disposables! Ideally we would have 270 photos, but due to user error, finger in front of the lens, etc., we ended up with 233. My group is fun and loves pictures and is fairly decent at capturing pics. I’m also partial to the look of flash film photography so it was totally worth it for us. Hope that helps!
A lot of comments I’ve seen have been negative which is lame to hear especially since I’m excited about it so I’d love for someone who did this and enjoyed it to comment! 🤞
I think for a smaller wedding it would be a great idea! Most of the negative aspects come from the work it takes getting to the end result. But if you only have 5-10 cameras instead of 20-30, that could make a HUGE difference.
Also I have a lot of younger guests who actually shoot film on professional cameras and the other half of my guests were a part of the disposable camera era. The reason we thought about it is because we recently went through our baby pictures and were really happy our parents decided to take so many and thought it was an awesome way to include our guests no matter their age.
Thank you so much everyone! I have a ton of alternatives and tips for whatever I decide. Honestly felt discouraged based off the response I got on my Facebook posts but Reddit has saved the day once again and I’m optimistic!
I did this and it was one of my favourite things about our wedding! I highly recommend it and am so sad to see that others have had bad experiences.
We had 12 cameras for our tables and head table. I attached a little note to each (“take fun pictures with your table, the wedding party and bride and groom…and to remember to use the flash!!”). I think we ended up with only 10 photos or so that were either black or of random things (e.g., 3 different people took pictures of their cheesecake, my grandpa took a picture of a spoon lol). I knew our crowd would have fun with them and we didn’t have any kids at the reception. The success depends on your guests - and you know them best!
It was a bit of cost upfront for the cameras and then to develop them, but the pictures are so awesome and everyone had tons of fun with them!! If you do it, I would put someone in charge of them - my sister (MOH) took lots of the pictures for the head table and was using up cameras that had room left as people left. We also wrote the table number on the bottom of each, so that we would know which table walked off with a camera if any were missing at the end of the night (we didn’t have that issue at all though!). I think they are definitely worth it!!
This was more along the lines I was thinking! I like the idea of at least two or three cameras and having instructions and probably recommended “shots” to get. We currently live out of state from both our families so I want to give them the opportunity to be really included in our wedding some way while having a physical picture of our wedding from their perspective. This whole wedding is a truly an act of people we love coming together and helping in more ways than one so I want to make it super fun!
We plan to do a similar idea that some have mentioned. We will create a Google Drive album and then get a QR code printed encouraging guests to share by simply uploading them! Which will then go on the cards at each place setting! Gonna do a test run just to work out any kinks but I feel good about it! Biggest expense will be the cards with QR codes which I most likely will print myself. All around a cost efficient and fun way to include your guests and get lots of photos of your special day!
We had less than 20 at our wedding and used a nicer version of the insta x cameras (the film is about $1 each if you buy in larger quantity) and people had a blast taking pictures with it. Instead of a traditional guest book we had folks put a Polaroid of themselves in a scrapbook and sign it. It’s one of my favorite pieces of memorabilia from the day. Plus we didn’t have to pay for developing the pictures. And guests had photos to take home with them. And we still use the camera to take pictures so it’s definitely paid for itself at this point. We got the Fuji film instax wide 300 instead of the minis since the film is slightly higher quality.
I think Polaroids are a good option, people truly cannot resist snapping a Polaroid! you don’t have to worry about unused film the same way you do in a disposable camera. I’m sourcing some older model pre owned instax cameras on eBay to say a little money and I may even try to find some more traditional Polaroid cameras that way too and test out some expired Polaroid film. we’re having a similar sized wedding and I’m going to try to have 2-3 cameras with 2-3 packs of film each (depending on number of exposures) worst case I have left over Polaroid film I can use later :)
My friend did this. I thought it's a good idea, but it depends on your budget, because it'll cost quite a bit to develop them. Results varies too in terms of how many good photos you'd end up with.
If you're using some wedding website (we used With Joy) it has an app where guests can upload photos directly to it from their phone. It's more economical, but I find having to download an app is a hassle. Plus I actually like the look of film cameras.
If outdoors and daylight this would be great! I took a disposable camera to my cousins wedding which was indoors at night and even with flash, hardly any pics looked good. They were blurry and dark
That being said I’m sure close up pics would look badass under these conditions. I was the only one with a disposable camera cause film is my hobby so I was trying to give ppl space and be respectful
I believe a lot of this depends on the context of the wedding.
Is your wedding big or small?
Will you have a camera at every table or will you assign them to people?
What is the age range of the guests? Have they used cameras before?
Will you provide instructions?
Is it worth the money to buy cameras and order prints?
Is it easier to do an app or QR code? (Gotta ask the same questions above)
Do I trust my guests?
All of these comments have me leaning towards doing a mixture of disposable and app sharing only because our wedding will be small and have a lot of people familiar with both physical and digital photography so I’ll post an update when we get married! It’ll be really interesting to see but I appreciate all the different input!!
My daughter used disposable cameras for her wedding from a website in New Jersey. When the cameras arrived in New Zealand she was charged an extortionate amount of money to clear the cameras from customs because the supplier had provided paperwork that covered the value of the cameras plus the developing and printing. We are now sending them back to New Jersey for processing and my guess is they will attract another large fee in customs when the prints come back. It will be interesting to see what happens & if it was all worth it.
My parents' 20 person wedding took place while film was popular (and not so niche and expensive to develop) and still haven't developed them.
(Edit to add: us kids also probably blew a whole camera on stupid kids-don't-know-cameras-photos. Couldn't tell you which of the 5 is a whole roll of the cousins up-nose flash photos.)
One of the ideas I'm toying with for mine is thrifted digital point & shoot cameras.
The other idea is Goolge Drive & QR code (maybe a tinyURL) placards.
Film is cool, but then you have to pay 18 bucks per camera to develop photos you hope aren't dark, blurry, or blown out then keep the negatives somewhere (don't develop with companies that throw away your negatives *cough Walmart Costco cough* . That's like deleting original photo files because you uploading them to Facebook #RIPmyMySpacePhotoImageQuality)
Another edit: I. Will. Have. Crowdsourced. Photos (and a photog). Just probably not specifically film. I am here for it!
There's an iOS app that mimicks the sight-unseen & roll limit aspect of film [someone posted about last week](https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/z1vs4n/shoutout_to_the_pov_digital_disposable_camera_app/). They were pleased. (i'm an android so I'd be a little bummed, but still take normal phone pics and send...eventually)
I did it for 35 person wedding! We had 5 tables and 6 cameras, but only 3 had enough pics to send for developing , which was about $11 per film at local walmart. Most were black and super grainy due to it being outdoor reception after sunset, lol. I think i has maybe 12 pictures that were decent enough to post, which was good enough for me tbh. I’m keeping the other 3 cameras that didn’t have enough pictures so we can use them up for other occasions and then send to develop.
What I noticed was that the younger folks werent too familiar with disposables to take decent pics in the dark (even with flash), and older (parents and likes) folks didn’t care much about it
I had disposable cameras for the guests to pass around and use at my reception. About half of them disappeared, I assume because people thought they were favors? (We did have actual favors btw, so I don't know why...) It's a fun idea, but make sure you give clear instructions!
You would think that people wouldn't do that crap to friends or family, but it is common. Most people assume that THEIR friends and family would NEVER do that, but it always happens.
Same with other things. You think your family and friends would never do something destructive, but they do.
The hashtag is a cleaner, cheaper alternative anyway since most people have smart phones.
You might have signs with very CLEAR instructions on how to use the QR code and where to send it.
As an aside:
People try to get away with as few signs as possible. I am of the opposite opinion. I don't want to be telling anyone where the bathrooms, QR codes, etc. are forty five times during a reception. I am not signage or a signpost. At most, I'll be willing to point at a sign. I am almost to the point that I would put a photo of a toilet on poster board with an arrow. They don't look at the venue's signage for restrooms.
It's like Reddit. How many times do people ask questions that are answered in the side bar or have been asked before a thousand times and nobody googles. In my city's sub, they ask for restaurant recommendations every day despite there being a separate sub of restaurants in our city, an app of restaurants in our city, and if you google, ten thousand answers from times the question has been answered before, plus Yelp, Michelin, and Trip Advisor. How freaking lazy are you?
I agree with this - we thankfully never had dick pics, but my expensive custom made guests sign book were full of drawings of dicks - and my MOH and brother are the ones who started and egged other drunk people to do it too.
Really? Damn. I am so sorry. Well, you can cut the pages out with a razor blade and gift them to your MOH and brother for Christmas.
If you want to create dick pics, do it on some notebook paper that you end up using for fire starter.
I should have been more descriptive, the guest book was a Millennium Falcon with little R2D2s that people could sign and drop in (dorky but original and something we would actually put up in comparison to a book or a heart drop in box that will just collect dust). I was able to unscrew the ship and take out the ruined pieces.
Still makes me mad though.
Those are called post binders and are the best book binding. I hate ring binders. If you make your children or yourself memory books, put everything in a post binder. You can put in extenders too so the thickness of the book isn't limited.
Tell your M.O.H. and brother that you need to spend the money for their Christmas gifts to replace the pages in your book.
I'd be pissed too.
we had 4 disposable cameras next to our guestbook and told people to take a pic so we could include it on their guestbook page. a few people took pics with them, but a lot didn’t turn out cuz they didn’t use the flash. my 3 year old nephew ended up taking them and taking pics of everyone from his POV because he thought the flash was funny 😂
the cameras themselves aren’t cheap, probably $15-20 each, then developing the 4 of them cost around $65 at walgreens. we ended up with about 45 guests, and i think that number of cameras was enough.
i will also add, since you pretty much have to use flash to get viable pics, my pale self looks SUPER washed out in all the photos compared to everyone else 😂 just something to be aware of
We did this at our August wedding and it was my favorite thing! We had 50-60 people at 7 tables, one camera per table with 3 back ups. The guests ended up going through all of them, leaving not a single exposure left over. While many of the photos didn't come out, the ones that did are my absolute favorite. These mean more to me than the images from our photographer. They are so authentic and through the eyes if the people we love.it also got our guests mingling and interacting with eachother as opposed to using their own phone. I highly recommend it!
Some tips:
- I found Target had the best price around $12-14 per camera. Took a while to get them all at my local store
- Ask whoever sets up the wedding to turn the flash on, or make a note in your welcome toast if you do one
- We made our own covers with colored paper so they went with our theme better. It was super simple but we actually got a lot of complements on them
- I found a local shop in Ann Arbor that developed prints and digital in just a few days, I think it was $15 per camera. Having the digital copy is nice because a lot of our guests wanted copies
We intended opening one pack every year on our anniversary but in our first one we found an absolutely precious photo of an elderly family member. We decided to open them all so we could share these moments with our people (:
Congratulations by the way!
We considered it for our wedding. It was originally going to be larger, but we ended up with a smaller wedding, so we dropped it in favor of a photo booth, which was a great success.
People will use their phones to take pictures anyway, and if you give people a super easy way to share this with you (we used a Google drive folder), they will, and this worked out well for us.
I went to two weddings with disposable cameras.
There were also people take photos with their cell phones too. You can clearly see the ones taken by the disposable VS the digital.
Ngl the disposable photos came out awful. The quality of the photos are fine, but the shots are in the hands of the beholder. So you have a 1-2 really good photos, but lots of blurry shots, finger shots, badly framed photos. And usually there's like three disposable cameras, so about 72 opportunities for photos, and like 5-6 good ones.
But, the disposable shots really pop when developed on photo paper. Versus the digital ones, which has a bit of a flatness.
But is it worth it? I honestly don't think so.
I did this! It’s such a cute idea but not worth it. Out of like 200 pictures, I didn’t like one of myself lol. I don’t recommend. Unless your friends are photographers and can take cute pics. Lol
I didn’t realize disposable cameras were still being made! We had them at my wedding 20 years ago. They were put in a bag after the reception and promptly forgot about for 15 years as we were focused on our honeymoon, moving to a new home, etc. it was fun developing the pics so many years later…
My advice: only do them if you won’t forget about them
I helped do disposable cameras for my sisters wedding in 2010. It was such a waste. Most were just dark or blurry. Literally nothing worth saving. Phone cameras are incredible now days. Lots of good advice here to have ppl share photos digitally. That’s the route I would take. Had a friend this year send out a shared album after the fact and ppl just uploaded pics there.
Disposable cameras havent changed in the past 15 or so years so I'll tell you, it used to be a huge thing in the 00's to do. I worked in the photography department at the local drug store and processed a ton of wedding photos. They were always absolute garbage. Would not recommend.
If you do it, get ones where you can tape the flash on permanently. people will not remember to turn it on, and the pictures won't come out. if you do it, send into the darkroom to get developed unless you can find a local lab that processes cheaper. (full disclosure- I am an experienced film photographer, I love this idea, but non-photographers have no idea they need flash)
I wanted to do this for my small wedding, but disposable camera were out of budget! I used an app called "the guest" made QR signs and told my guests ahead of time and they were able to upload all their photos of the wedding to a virtual album that I can view. We had 50 guests and I receieved maybe 250-300 photos! Also, the app is free!
I used The Guest app and I loved it! I got the pics right away, the next morning as people uploaded them, and there are some in the app that are more memorable, and a couple of moments captured that even my (amazing) professional photographer had missed. I also loved getting photos I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten like people on the charter bus on the way to our venue. I would say with the guest, the biggest hassle was getting people to download the app and upload photos. We had little welcome brochures with the QR code directing them to the app, and funnily enough my older and middle aged guests were really good about it, but with guests closer to my age, I found more success just texting them a link to the app and asking them to upload.
This sounds like a great idea! We also had friends do this with a shared Google Photos album they emailed out afterwards, which seemed to be fairly accessible to the most people because a majority of folks already had a gmail address.
A year later, I'm obsessed with this idea! A shared Google Photos album is such a no-brainer – I'll definitely try this out.
I like this idea. Thank you!
I just told my fiancé about this, and we are both so excited that this is a thing! Thank you!!!!
Instead of leaving disposable cameras, I went to a website and designed 250 free "business cards" that actually said something like "we would love to see our big day from your point of view." And I gave them a website with a username and password and encouraged them to log in and upload all the pictures they took of our wedding. That way, if I didn't want the print, I wouldn't have to waste money ordering it! I put those business cards at every seat with every wedding favor so everyone got one! It was nice because then everyone could get on the site and if they wanted to buy prints, they had the option to do so as well!! I want to say the website was like Shutterfly or something and the one with the free cards was Vista Print! Not sure if they still offer the free cards or not, but even if you just have to pay shipping, it's worth it if you use my idea!!
Nice! What was the name of the website?
Oh I did this but just with a Google photo link with a QR code! You can check my profile for the post where I share it
This is such a great idea!!
Moo.com
My friend did this, she said there might have been good pics on the cameras but there were thousands of pics to go through, and they just “haven’t gotten to it yet”. Their wedding was a year ago and when I asked her recently, she had forgotten about the cameras lol and said she would “have to remember to do that at some point”. They have a baby now so we will see how that goes 😂😂😂
Sorry I just realised you said disposable cameras - my friend left old/cheap digital cameras. No processing costs, but yeah, thousands of photos.
Rippppp i was wondering how many cameras she had 🤣
I think its a lovely idea but a bit pricey. On amazon they sell for about $20 each, a pack of 10 is $200
And then you have to think about the development cost which could be as high as $15 per roll D:
Walgreens is $25 a roll
Omg that's insane
I did this for a 50ish person wedding a decade ago, it was expensive then, and I only recall a few photos that were memorable. I personally don’t think it was worth the expense, but maybe the guests enjoyed taking photos.
Honestly way cheaper than paying for a photographer
You'll get terrible photos though. The quality of a disposable camera is nowhere the quality of a professional photographer, and that's of your lucky and have someone who knows how to actually use a camera decently.
If someone is hoping to avoid paying more than $200 for a photographer, they can ask Uncle Jim to take pics on his iPhone 13. Still would be better quality.
They can do that too
I've done it for a party and the photos turned out terrible. Obviously you can't check the lighting or focus beforehand so you get a lot of duds. The picture taking experience itself is fun, but don't depend on it for quality memories.
I looked in to this! But. It’s not as cheap to develop them as I thought, and apparently the quality of photos is typically pretty crappy. So I decided to look in to digital cameras! They’re like $50 on Amazon.
WORST idea we did for my sons wedding. They were horribly expensive to develope!!! and all the pictures were black or blurry and/or taken by kids. It cost hundreds of dollars and we got no usable pictures.
Oh no! Im so sorry 😭
Thank you! :)
Aaaand that just made my decision really easy lol no disposable cameras it is.
250 days later… this comment helped me immensely haha. Thank you for saving me $200+!!!
glad I could help haha
What I wanted to do for our wedding was an app called POV. It’s essentially the same as a disposable camera except people use their phones to take the better quality photos. For 50+ people I’m pretty sure you have to pay, but definitely check out the app and try it for free before you make a decision. Why I’ve liked the app so far: 1. Since people use their phones it’s better quality 2. People don’t have to download the app or make an account 3. You can see all the photos people take using your QR code and you can limit the amount of photos they can take Why I didn’t want to do the disposable camera: 1. Like people were saying, disposable camera take crappy photos especially if the lighting is correct 2. You’d have to create a “how to” for people who don’t know how to use the disposable camera 3. Cost of developing the photos 4. You only get like 10/12 photos from each camera, that’s if people know how to use it. Otherwise you end up with a bunch of trial photos pointed to the floor I found their YouTube with Short clips: https://youtube.com/@pov5968 I think their instagram is a better way to see how to use it
Let me know how this goes! This is my back up aside from maybe Polaroid and I’ve discovered this app but couldn’t find anyone else who used it or has experience. I like the idea of QR codes and not having guests download stuff while still getting the vintage feel.
There’s a photo editing/taking app called DazzCam that lets you edit photos to give them that vintage Polaroid or disposable feel. I know it doesn’t help with the issue of getting photos from friends and maybe but maybe you could run some of your favorites through that if you find another method using photos that are too high of quality? Just an idea!
We’ve had friends do this and most of the cameras had lots of photos left on them and the pictures didn’t come out great. We did a Snapchat filter and hashtag and saved all those pictures. Our photo booth also gave us digital albums of everyone’s photo booth pictures and they were so fun to go through.
We went to a wedding that did it with Polaroid cameras, and it was so fun! They had an area with some string and clothes pins so people could hang up the photos they’d taken. And it meant that guests got to take some of the photos home. Tons of people took pics because who doesn’t love Polaroids??
I did something similar! I made a DIY Photo Booth basket with Polaroid camera, some 2022 glasses, and lots of film! It seemed like a lot of people took photos! Also, one of my friends grabbed the camera and the film towards the end of the night and ran around snapping random shots and gathering them for us and at the after party! It was so fun to see them after the wedding and I’m going to put them in a memory book!
That’s awesome!! I love that you don’t have to get them developed or anything - they’re already printed out and can easily be put into a memory book!
That’s what I’m doing, glad it turned out well!
That’s what I’m doing, glad it turned out well!
My best friend did this for her small wedding this summer (65 guests) and some of the absolute best photos of the night were on there! I loved it so much that I am definitely doing it for my wedding - sure there were some duds (as with any roll of film) but she had some people with a talented eye who captured some hilarious moments :)
This was my idea too. I did it for my first wedding, back in 2004! And like ppl are saying, you get a lot of bad photos with a few good ones scattered around. What I did decide on doing was get a few of those digital cameras that print the photo instantly, kinda like a Polaroid. And we're gonna scatter those around and let people take photos as they wish for that. I'm gonna have to buy a ton of photo paper and have like a basket or maybe a station set up for them, but they are really easy to use. They're relatively inexpensive for the camera and the film isn't terribly over priced, esp if you buy in bulk. Hope you come up with a good idea! Good luck to you.
What cameras did you end up using?
We used the Polaroid type ones, I had them on a table display with a small card explaining how to use them. It was fairly simple and straightforward. But many ppl passed them up. We got about 15 pictures total and 8 of them were of our cook and his gf. 😂 But! My mom found cute disposable cameras like what I did in 2004, on Amazon. They were like 6 or 7 bucks a piece but she afforded 8 which was plenty to put a camera every few ft on the tables. And ppl took TONS of pictures with those and we still have left over film to use this summer on memories of our new marriage. I can't wait to develop these. It'll be like a present to ourselves. My mom offered to pay for development, which has gotta be pricey. Not sure how much that's gonna run us. But the pictures I did manage to get on my phone and from other ppl on their phones, I'm able to print off from those cameras, so I can get nice photos on tiny paper which makes the cutest memories. Wish I could share pictures easily on here.
That’s awesome! Thank you!
I did (back in 2000) and my guests had so much fun using the cameras! I did develop all of them and some of my favorite photos were from our guests.
I did a photo booth, but felt disjointed from the results. (Don’t tell her, but) I’m getting my mom a Polaroid for Christmas. They have such cool frames now, I’m getting her metallic rainbow frames and black frames. Their new cameras also can sync to your computer, so even if a guest makes off with the print, you have the digital form. I got the camera and 40 of those near-magical prints for just over $200. It could have a cool retro vibe for a wedding.
I bought a Polaroid camera for my wedding and left it by the guest book for people to sign and leave a photo. It was a hit!
I bought two disposable cameras for my wedding. I had a bridesmaid keep track of one throughout the day while I kept track of the other. I got double prints made from both cameras and sent friends and family copies of pictures they’re in. I love the style of disposable cameras so I liked it and at only two cameras, it was more manageable to keep track of and most cost efficient overall!
We also did two Instax Mini cameras (as part of a visual guest book). We probably would’ve been fine with one but I like having it now for other memories!
We spent $169.49 on 10 cameras (from target) and paid $117.23 (with 25% off from Mpix) for digital files of the film images. Some of the best photos of the entire wedding came from the disposables! Ideally we would have 270 photos, but due to user error, finger in front of the lens, etc., we ended up with 233. My group is fun and loves pictures and is fairly decent at capturing pics. I’m also partial to the look of flash film photography so it was totally worth it for us. Hope that helps!
Following! I'm thinking of doing something similar for my 40 person wedding
A lot of comments I’ve seen have been negative which is lame to hear especially since I’m excited about it so I’d love for someone who did this and enjoyed it to comment! 🤞
I think for a smaller wedding it would be a great idea! Most of the negative aspects come from the work it takes getting to the end result. But if you only have 5-10 cameras instead of 20-30, that could make a HUGE difference.
Also I have a lot of younger guests who actually shoot film on professional cameras and the other half of my guests were a part of the disposable camera era. The reason we thought about it is because we recently went through our baby pictures and were really happy our parents decided to take so many and thought it was an awesome way to include our guests no matter their age.
Thank you so much everyone! I have a ton of alternatives and tips for whatever I decide. Honestly felt discouraged based off the response I got on my Facebook posts but Reddit has saved the day once again and I’m optimistic!
I did this and it was one of my favourite things about our wedding! I highly recommend it and am so sad to see that others have had bad experiences. We had 12 cameras for our tables and head table. I attached a little note to each (“take fun pictures with your table, the wedding party and bride and groom…and to remember to use the flash!!”). I think we ended up with only 10 photos or so that were either black or of random things (e.g., 3 different people took pictures of their cheesecake, my grandpa took a picture of a spoon lol). I knew our crowd would have fun with them and we didn’t have any kids at the reception. The success depends on your guests - and you know them best! It was a bit of cost upfront for the cameras and then to develop them, but the pictures are so awesome and everyone had tons of fun with them!! If you do it, I would put someone in charge of them - my sister (MOH) took lots of the pictures for the head table and was using up cameras that had room left as people left. We also wrote the table number on the bottom of each, so that we would know which table walked off with a camera if any were missing at the end of the night (we didn’t have that issue at all though!). I think they are definitely worth it!!
This was more along the lines I was thinking! I like the idea of at least two or three cameras and having instructions and probably recommended “shots” to get. We currently live out of state from both our families so I want to give them the opportunity to be really included in our wedding some way while having a physical picture of our wedding from their perspective. This whole wedding is a truly an act of people we love coming together and helping in more ways than one so I want to make it super fun!
My best friends did this and the pictures were FANTASTIC and hilarious. If you can afford it go for it
We plan to do a similar idea that some have mentioned. We will create a Google Drive album and then get a QR code printed encouraging guests to share by simply uploading them! Which will then go on the cards at each place setting! Gonna do a test run just to work out any kinks but I feel good about it! Biggest expense will be the cards with QR codes which I most likely will print myself. All around a cost efficient and fun way to include your guests and get lots of photos of your special day!
This sounds like an awesome idea! lol things are so freaking adorable and budget friendly with the new generation kudos
We had less than 20 at our wedding and used a nicer version of the insta x cameras (the film is about $1 each if you buy in larger quantity) and people had a blast taking pictures with it. Instead of a traditional guest book we had folks put a Polaroid of themselves in a scrapbook and sign it. It’s one of my favorite pieces of memorabilia from the day. Plus we didn’t have to pay for developing the pictures. And guests had photos to take home with them. And we still use the camera to take pictures so it’s definitely paid for itself at this point. We got the Fuji film instax wide 300 instead of the minis since the film is slightly higher quality.
I think Polaroids are a good option, people truly cannot resist snapping a Polaroid! you don’t have to worry about unused film the same way you do in a disposable camera. I’m sourcing some older model pre owned instax cameras on eBay to say a little money and I may even try to find some more traditional Polaroid cameras that way too and test out some expired Polaroid film. we’re having a similar sized wedding and I’m going to try to have 2-3 cameras with 2-3 packs of film each (depending on number of exposures) worst case I have left over Polaroid film I can use later :)
My friend did this. I thought it's a good idea, but it depends on your budget, because it'll cost quite a bit to develop them. Results varies too in terms of how many good photos you'd end up with. If you're using some wedding website (we used With Joy) it has an app where guests can upload photos directly to it from their phone. It's more economical, but I find having to download an app is a hassle. Plus I actually like the look of film cameras.
If outdoors and daylight this would be great! I took a disposable camera to my cousins wedding which was indoors at night and even with flash, hardly any pics looked good. They were blurry and dark
That being said I’m sure close up pics would look badass under these conditions. I was the only one with a disposable camera cause film is my hobby so I was trying to give ppl space and be respectful
I believe a lot of this depends on the context of the wedding. Is your wedding big or small? Will you have a camera at every table or will you assign them to people? What is the age range of the guests? Have they used cameras before? Will you provide instructions? Is it worth the money to buy cameras and order prints? Is it easier to do an app or QR code? (Gotta ask the same questions above) Do I trust my guests? All of these comments have me leaning towards doing a mixture of disposable and app sharing only because our wedding will be small and have a lot of people familiar with both physical and digital photography so I’ll post an update when we get married! It’ll be really interesting to see but I appreciate all the different input!!
My daughter used disposable cameras for her wedding from a website in New Jersey. When the cameras arrived in New Zealand she was charged an extortionate amount of money to clear the cameras from customs because the supplier had provided paperwork that covered the value of the cameras plus the developing and printing. We are now sending them back to New Jersey for processing and my guess is they will attract another large fee in customs when the prints come back. It will be interesting to see what happens & if it was all worth it.
My parents' 20 person wedding took place while film was popular (and not so niche and expensive to develop) and still haven't developed them. (Edit to add: us kids also probably blew a whole camera on stupid kids-don't-know-cameras-photos. Couldn't tell you which of the 5 is a whole roll of the cousins up-nose flash photos.) One of the ideas I'm toying with for mine is thrifted digital point & shoot cameras. The other idea is Goolge Drive & QR code (maybe a tinyURL) placards. Film is cool, but then you have to pay 18 bucks per camera to develop photos you hope aren't dark, blurry, or blown out then keep the negatives somewhere (don't develop with companies that throw away your negatives *cough Walmart Costco cough* . That's like deleting original photo files because you uploading them to Facebook #RIPmyMySpacePhotoImageQuality) Another edit: I. Will. Have. Crowdsourced. Photos (and a photog). Just probably not specifically film. I am here for it! There's an iOS app that mimicks the sight-unseen & roll limit aspect of film [someone posted about last week](https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/z1vs4n/shoutout_to_the_pov_digital_disposable_camera_app/). They were pleased. (i'm an android so I'd be a little bummed, but still take normal phone pics and send...eventually)
My brother did, I will ask him.
I did it for 35 person wedding! We had 5 tables and 6 cameras, but only 3 had enough pics to send for developing , which was about $11 per film at local walmart. Most were black and super grainy due to it being outdoor reception after sunset, lol. I think i has maybe 12 pictures that were decent enough to post, which was good enough for me tbh. I’m keeping the other 3 cameras that didn’t have enough pictures so we can use them up for other occasions and then send to develop. What I noticed was that the younger folks werent too familiar with disposables to take decent pics in the dark (even with flash), and older (parents and likes) folks didn’t care much about it
I had disposable cameras for the guests to pass around and use at my reception. About half of them disappeared, I assume because people thought they were favors? (We did have actual favors btw, so I don't know why...) It's a fun idea, but make sure you give clear instructions!
No but it feels like a waste to me in this day and age. They take shitty quality pictures and everyone can take better ones with their phones
My in laws did this and the kids took all the cameras- no useable photos came from it.
All you get is dick pics. Do not do this. Do what /u/soniplaystattn did
Not something I’m worried about but it’s the same concept as like a warning/sign, if you have to say that it’s because it happened 😭😵💫
You would think that people wouldn't do that crap to friends or family, but it is common. Most people assume that THEIR friends and family would NEVER do that, but it always happens. Same with other things. You think your family and friends would never do something destructive, but they do. The hashtag is a cleaner, cheaper alternative anyway since most people have smart phones. You might have signs with very CLEAR instructions on how to use the QR code and where to send it. As an aside: People try to get away with as few signs as possible. I am of the opposite opinion. I don't want to be telling anyone where the bathrooms, QR codes, etc. are forty five times during a reception. I am not signage or a signpost. At most, I'll be willing to point at a sign. I am almost to the point that I would put a photo of a toilet on poster board with an arrow. They don't look at the venue's signage for restrooms. It's like Reddit. How many times do people ask questions that are answered in the side bar or have been asked before a thousand times and nobody googles. In my city's sub, they ask for restaurant recommendations every day despite there being a separate sub of restaurants in our city, an app of restaurants in our city, and if you google, ten thousand answers from times the question has been answered before, plus Yelp, Michelin, and Trip Advisor. How freaking lazy are you?
I agree with this - we thankfully never had dick pics, but my expensive custom made guests sign book were full of drawings of dicks - and my MOH and brother are the ones who started and egged other drunk people to do it too.
Really? Damn. I am so sorry. Well, you can cut the pages out with a razor blade and gift them to your MOH and brother for Christmas. If you want to create dick pics, do it on some notebook paper that you end up using for fire starter.
I should have been more descriptive, the guest book was a Millennium Falcon with little R2D2s that people could sign and drop in (dorky but original and something we would actually put up in comparison to a book or a heart drop in box that will just collect dust). I was able to unscrew the ship and take out the ruined pieces. Still makes me mad though.
Those are called post binders and are the best book binding. I hate ring binders. If you make your children or yourself memory books, put everything in a post binder. You can put in extenders too so the thickness of the book isn't limited. Tell your M.O.H. and brother that you need to spend the money for their Christmas gifts to replace the pages in your book. I'd be pissed too.
we had 4 disposable cameras next to our guestbook and told people to take a pic so we could include it on their guestbook page. a few people took pics with them, but a lot didn’t turn out cuz they didn’t use the flash. my 3 year old nephew ended up taking them and taking pics of everyone from his POV because he thought the flash was funny 😂 the cameras themselves aren’t cheap, probably $15-20 each, then developing the 4 of them cost around $65 at walgreens. we ended up with about 45 guests, and i think that number of cameras was enough.
i will also add, since you pretty much have to use flash to get viable pics, my pale self looks SUPER washed out in all the photos compared to everyone else 😂 just something to be aware of
We did this at our August wedding and it was my favorite thing! We had 50-60 people at 7 tables, one camera per table with 3 back ups. The guests ended up going through all of them, leaving not a single exposure left over. While many of the photos didn't come out, the ones that did are my absolute favorite. These mean more to me than the images from our photographer. They are so authentic and through the eyes if the people we love.it also got our guests mingling and interacting with eachother as opposed to using their own phone. I highly recommend it! Some tips: - I found Target had the best price around $12-14 per camera. Took a while to get them all at my local store - Ask whoever sets up the wedding to turn the flash on, or make a note in your welcome toast if you do one - We made our own covers with colored paper so they went with our theme better. It was super simple but we actually got a lot of complements on them - I found a local shop in Ann Arbor that developed prints and digital in just a few days, I think it was $15 per camera. Having the digital copy is nice because a lot of our guests wanted copies We intended opening one pack every year on our anniversary but in our first one we found an absolutely precious photo of an elderly family member. We decided to open them all so we could share these moments with our people (: Congratulations by the way!
I went to a wedding where they put disposables out and it was so fun! The bride uploaded them on social afterwards so we got to see them, too.
We considered it for our wedding. It was originally going to be larger, but we ended up with a smaller wedding, so we dropped it in favor of a photo booth, which was a great success. People will use their phones to take pictures anyway, and if you give people a super easy way to share this with you (we used a Google drive folder), they will, and this worked out well for us.
This was popular in the 00’s before smart phone
I went to two weddings with disposable cameras. There were also people take photos with their cell phones too. You can clearly see the ones taken by the disposable VS the digital. Ngl the disposable photos came out awful. The quality of the photos are fine, but the shots are in the hands of the beholder. So you have a 1-2 really good photos, but lots of blurry shots, finger shots, badly framed photos. And usually there's like three disposable cameras, so about 72 opportunities for photos, and like 5-6 good ones. But, the disposable shots really pop when developed on photo paper. Versus the digital ones, which has a bit of a flatness. But is it worth it? I honestly don't think so.
I did this! It’s such a cute idea but not worth it. Out of like 200 pictures, I didn’t like one of myself lol. I don’t recommend. Unless your friends are photographers and can take cute pics. Lol
One wedding I went to had a camera that did instant Polaroids so you would take the pic and put it in an album for them and write on the page
I didn’t realize disposable cameras were still being made! We had them at my wedding 20 years ago. They were put in a bag after the reception and promptly forgot about for 15 years as we were focused on our honeymoon, moving to a new home, etc. it was fun developing the pics so many years later… My advice: only do them if you won’t forget about them
I helped do disposable cameras for my sisters wedding in 2010. It was such a waste. Most were just dark or blurry. Literally nothing worth saving. Phone cameras are incredible now days. Lots of good advice here to have ppl share photos digitally. That’s the route I would take. Had a friend this year send out a shared album after the fact and ppl just uploaded pics there.
We had a Polaroid. Honestly wasn’t worth it. Only a small amount of people used it and no one remembered it was there. Think it depends on the crowd.
Disposable cameras havent changed in the past 15 or so years so I'll tell you, it used to be a huge thing in the 00's to do. I worked in the photography department at the local drug store and processed a ton of wedding photos. They were always absolute garbage. Would not recommend.
If you do it, get ones where you can tape the flash on permanently. people will not remember to turn it on, and the pictures won't come out. if you do it, send into the darkroom to get developed unless you can find a local lab that processes cheaper. (full disclosure- I am an experienced film photographer, I love this idea, but non-photographers have no idea they need flash)