OBT member Becca, aka. bmwbzz and her new husband had a fantastic photo booth at their fantastic turquoise & red wedding that we featured last month.
She's been kind enough to give us all the low-down on their DIY photo booth, with step by step instructions how how you can get the magic at your wedding.
A few people, on and off OBT, have asked about our DIY photo booth so I thought I'd share. It went over really well with everyone at the wedding!
Stuff you need
- Computer
- Webcam or laptop with a built-in webcam
- Spark Booth photo booth software
- Printer that prints 4x6 photos
- 4x6 photo paper
- Table or something to put said computer, printer, and webcam on
Stuff you might want
- Lamp
- Fabric, room divider, or something as a back-drop
- External monitor
- External keyboard
- Table cloth
- Signage
The set-up
- Computer: My HP Laptop with an external monitor and external keyboard
- Webcam: Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000. My laptop had a built-in webcam but we found that the external one had better pictures. Fortunately, I had bought my parents a webcam for Christmas so we borrowed that!
- Spark Booth, which costs
$40$59 (the price recently went up). - Printer: Canon Pixma MP560. I looked at photo printers but they were the same price as this All-In-One Printer and we needed a scanner. According to ConsumerReports.org, it printed 4x6 photos only a little slower than the photo printers and the print quality was better.
- Photo paper: Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II 400 sheets
- Card table
- Tree lamp similar to this one from Target.
- Back-drop: Van Gogh Room Divider. I charged my dad with figuring out a back drop and he came up with this Van Gogh room divider which he was going to get for my parent's house anyway. I also had about three yards of fabric which we used behind the sign. Also, because the room divider was double sided, the back-side made a great back drop for guestbook and other pictures!
How we did it:
The credit really goes to my amazing cousin! Basically she put the laptop on a box under the table and covered the table with an extra black table cloth.
She hooked up the printer, monitor and keyboard and put them on the table. (Duh, right?)
I choose to use an external monitor and keyboard (but no mouse!) for two reasons:
- I didn't want people actually touching my laptop
- I wanted to give them as little opportunity as possible to mess something up hence not having a mouse. (Although I think the latter concern was pretty unfounded).
My cousin pushed the table against the wall and stuck my signs onto the wall above it. The signs said:
"1. Sit & Pose,"
"2. Press the space bar,"
"3. Smile 4. Smile 5. Smile,"
"6. Preview & Print. Press return to print.,"
"7. Pick up your photo!" — (I would have added that photos take a minute or so to print to the last sign.)
She put two chairs in front of the table and the room divider behind it. There was a door (to a closet) next to the photo booth where she hung red fabric and our photo booth sign. This way you could see the photo booth sign when looking at it but the people in the photo booth had a bit of privacy.
Make sure that you turn off your computer's power saving settings before using. I set it to never sleep. Then run the Spark Booth app and put it in Full Screen mode and everything should be set to go!
That's it!
Photos by Jeremy Lawson Photography
About Becca Miller-Webster
Currently, Becca works as a computer programmer. After having a blast as the Offbeat Bride intern, she's now a Contributing Editor to Offbeat Bride and an on-call developer for the whole Offbeat Empire.
Ana said
LOVE this…..much better than my impromptu "photobooth". If only this was posted a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I have enough time to set this up before the 13th. I'll definitely use this idea for future parties though.
skullcandie said
This is such a great idea & seems totally affordable!
And, yea, like Ana said, this would be great for ANY kind of party!
Shleebs said
THIS.
Tim said
Great idea and execution.
Danielle said
Very glad to see this as we are trying to figure out how not to spend the $1000+ for a photobooth and attendant. This will work great and I am even thinking of setting up 2 stations since I have 2 photo printers and 2 laptops with cameras built in!
Thank you!!!
Kristi said
Thanks for posting this! I LOVE it! One question: does the program save a copy of all the photos onto your computer so you can see them all after the wedding?
Cass said
Kristi – yes it does. If you have access to internet it can also immediately upload to facebook & the like too!
Engyln said
Brilliant! I was wondering how to pull this off – and I have all the equipment already!
vintagenettles said
This is seriously awesome. I've been looking up hire costs for actual old school photobooths but this way we get copies of everything as well right on our machines. AWESOME!
*will have to check to see if its got a print x2 straight up option*
Becca said
There are a variety of options for printing the pics and one is to print two of the standard 4 pic strips and then you could have scissors and people can cut them in half.
enigma said
This is very awesome. I kept thinking "it can't be that hard" but then when it came down to actually thinking about the details of doing it, in the end all I could figure out was "maybe we'll just skip it". Now I feel like it's a lot more realistic!
Thank you so much!
Crystal said
Linux Has a free photo booth program called cheese. We opted not to print them…so I don't know if it can print with ease…But it can upload to flicker!
Becca said
Mac also has a free photo booth software. I tried a bunch of them and I thought PartyBooth was the best and at $40 totally worth it as everything is easy and automated.
Becca said
Also, Spark Booth has an options to upload to flickr, facebook, and twitter as well.
sílvia said
Yay! We'll be using Cheese for our photobooth
enigma said
Did PartyBooth have a recent price increase? I'm seeing it costs $59. $40 I thought was okay, but somehow $60 seems like a lot for an application with fairly limited functionality. Hmm – might just have to bite the bullet.
Becca said
Hmmm …. I guess it did. The other software I looked at cost almost $200 so $60 is still a decent price.
In terms of the functionality being limited, what more were you looking for something to do?
Fair Hannah said
I just checked out the sparkbooth site… it looks like you can get a 10 day free trial, not sure if this would help but thought I'd point it out!
Ramesh said
Wow, this is such a great idea! I tried something similar with me photographing the people but it was hard work standing there all night. The PhotoBooth and webcam is a superb idea. Thanks for sharing, hope you don't mind if I use the idea
Megan said
Thank you for sharing all the details, ever since the update about your wedding I have been trying to figure out the setup!
I have the same printer and was wondering how much ink you went through, did you have to change it through out the night?
Becca said
We did not have to change the ink at all. I put in new cartridges before we started though.
mellissa said
I love DIY! Thanks for sharing this different approach to photobooths. We actually had a DIY photobooth at our wedding with a regular camera and a remote control. But now I am spending hours cutting and sending the picture strips! I like this idea much better!
Jessica_Iowa said
Thanks for taking the time to write this. Your tutorial is really well written and really easy to follow!
Shannon said
Does it save the photos that your guests take to the computer as well? I like this idea, but I would like to have copies of them too I think :p
Becca said
Yep. You get a copy of all the photos saved to your computer.
Rhonda J said
Can you explain how you were you able to put text on your picture? THanks!
Becca said
Hi Rhonda,
With the Spark Booth software, you can add an image to your photos. We created the image with the masking tape and "Becca and Adam Get Hitched." In the settings for PartyBooth, we set that to be the image on the pictures.
I'd say get the software and play around with it until you get things to look how you want them to.
Good luck!
Andrea Padilla said
Oh my gravy! This DIY photo booth is bananas-amazing!!! I am having a DIY wedding and cannot afford to hire a Photo Booth. So, last night the light bulb came on in my head and I was like, "Self, you need to Google "DIY photo booth"…and that I did! Thanks so much for sharing this, Becca and Offbeat Bride!
Rachel said
I know I'm a little late to the party, but any suggestions on how to get Sparkbooth to print to the photo tray instead of the regular paper tray? I am trying to figure it out using the demo and can't manage to get past this step.
John said
Are you using Mac or Windows?
Rachel said
Hey there, I'm using mac, and I posted the question on the Spark Booth support forum as well, with more details. Thanks!
John said
I will help you at http://help.sparkbooth.com. Thanks!
Danielle said
THIS IS AMAZING!! Much easier and more customizable than paying the 1000.00 of renting a photo booth!
Joy said
So excited about this!!!! We are on a tight budget for our wedding and this idea was about to get cut for sure. Looking at the pricing of the booths some 1000.00 or more for the day. I have just about all of the things here at home only need the software and some fabric.
Marcy McDowell Kessler said
We so wanted to have a photobooth but the cost of renting the actual booth is just outrageous. This is an awesome idea! We're both geeks, will use your idea, and will set this up at our wedding too. Thanks so much!
Maggie said
Great tutorial! Def plan on using it! You said that you didn't run out of ink and I had a couple of questions about that. How many 4×6 photos were printed on one ink cartridge? Or how many guests did you have? I have the same printer and I'm trying to figure out if I need to have back up ink with someone designated to change it.
Kara said
Hi Maggie, I did this, and with the XL Canon ink it did about 130 or so 4X6 photos. I would suggest it's always a good idea to have backup ink and someone to change it just in case. We put a little sign up that said "if the ink runs out or if there are problems, please see so and so at table so and so". This photobooth was a HUGE hit at our wedding!
Michelle said
Thanks for posting this! I'm so going to use this idea for my wedding.
Casey said
Thought I would post this link for a free photobooth program:
http://www.openphotobooth.com/index.php
I haven't tested it out so I can't confirm it's ease of use, but here it is for anyone else to try. Post back with your experiences, and good luck!