Hey y’all! Hope you all had a great weekend. I had a very busy one myself, and didn’t have time to do a post for today. So in honor of the week leading up to my 2 year anniversary weekend celebration, I’m revisiting an old post, which was a DIY that I did for my wedding. Hope you like! xx
One of my wedding musts was a photo booth. My husband and I started dating in high school and we have a collection of photo booth strips from over the years (we even did some during our engagement photos). But we didn’t have $1500+ extra in our budget to rent one, so I decided to make one myself. I’ve seen DIY photo booths done different ways, depending on the kind you want and the amount of work you want to put in. I wanted to put in very little work, as I already had lots of DIY projects I was doing myself. So, here are my super simple instructions for a DIY photo booth/ polaroid station:
1. First, find a bright, fun fabric to use as the background. I went to Joann’s Fabrics and bought mine on sale. I got extra and used it for the fabric tiers of my cupcake tower. I would suggest 6 yards to be sure you have enough.
2. Depending on where you are going to have the ‘booth’ you may need some supportive structure. I hung mine from shrubbery, so we basically just tied the fabric corners to the sticks of the shrubs. If you do not have a structure to use, you’ll need to build one, but most any venue would have a wall that you can tie, stick, or fasten your fabric to. If you need a structure, see this post from Ruffled. It is a great and cheap way to build a photobooth structure!
3. You’ll need a digital camera and a quality photo printer, or even better and easier, a Polaroid camera and film. I found both of mine on ebay. As you probably know, the film has sadly been discontinued, so it isn’t the cheapest, but $200 on film vs. $1500+ to rent a booth still equals a bargain in my book. Update: you can find the modern version of the polaroid camera that still produces instant photos, but not with the same look of the old school polaroids.
4. Make a sign (I used a chalkboard one) instructing guests on how you want them to take photos and what to do with them (are they favors, do you want to keep them, are they for the guestbook, etc.)
5. You can gather props if you want as well, or again, you can use a chalkboard so guests can write messages and put them in the photos. I didn’t use props, but I did hang our initials on the backdrop (which were craft paper initials from paper source that I painted and tied ribbon to).
6. Put a small table near the fabric backdrop. This is where you’ll put your camera, film, sign, props, etc.
After these very simple steps, you have your own DIY photo booth. My guests absolutely loved ours, and we didn’t even tell them what to do with the photos (one of the things I forgot in the rush, along with getting a polaroid of just myself and my husband together) but they gave the photos to us, which I loved! I’m going to frame them all in a huge framed collage and hang them in our apartment (someday!) Here are a few of our polaroids from our DIY booth:
Update – I DID frame our polaroids together and hung it in our home,
which you can see in this picture behind me and Charlie:
I hope you enjoy this DIY. With all of the photobooths I’m still constantly seeing in weddings and on the blogs, I think it is as relevant today as it was two years ago, which kind of amazes me. Happy DIY’ing.
9 Comments
This is a great idea! I love the polaroid look & it looked like it was a total blast for guests. I might have to try this for my clients! More photos = more fun!
Great post – I’m loving your photo booth ideas. Oh, and I’m really loving the picture of you and little charlie.
Handsome little man! Just took mine to his 1 year pediatrician appointment this morning.
He’s over 25 lbs now + in the 96 % for height
Thought you’d appreciate hearing the stats 
xoxo, chrissy
The Perfect Palette
oooh LOVE DIY photo booths! I’m in the process of making one for our wedding this November. Would love to learn more about how to light one properly. Have you any tips?
SUCH a cool thing to have on your wall to keep forever. Love that idea.
The polaroid look is so fun!
I LOVE This Idea!! Its just so original
hi ! I love your DIY photo booth. I was just wondering… did you use the camera that you linked us to? The target store one?
Glad you liked it. As I said in the post, I used an old school polaroid camera, but the film was discontinued right around that same time and it is almost impossible to find (and if you do find it somewhere, like ebay, it is probably expired). So the one I linked to is an updated version with film that you can find the film. good luck!
DIY photo booth is a good treat to your friends in an event or party. And for sure they will enjoy spend time in photo booth.