DIY Wedding Photo Booth

I've finally recovered from the wedding weekend.  We had so much to do and so much going on, but I think I'm ready to share a few things with you.  First, our DIY Wedding Photo Booth.

I love love love how this turned out!  As the guests arrived, they wrote a message to the bride and groom on the chalkboard and then took a picture holding the sign.  I'm in the process of making a book with all the photos for the bride and groom.  It'll be kind of like a photo guest book.

 Here's how I did it:

I set up a backdrop close to the entrance of the wedding reception.  My backdrop consisted of burlap, paper doilies sewn together, lace ribbon, mini pennant banners, and a white heart garland.

I used my cannon rebel camera and a tripod to take the pictures.  I took all the pictures.  I thought about having the guests take their own pictures, but there were too many things that could go wrong with that scenario.  This way I was able to catch all the guests as they came in, explain what to do, and make sure the settings on the camera were right.  The light was constantly changing because the sun was going down.  I took a few breaks to grab some food and participate in the surprise flash mob (yes we had a flash mob), but I was pretty much at the photo booth the whole reception.

As the sun went down, I had to start using the flash.  I was a little worried about how the photos would turn out with the flash, but the turned out pretty good.  The only problem I ran into was the chalkboard would sometimes create a glare.  So I started asking guests to face the chalkboard slightly downward.  And that fixed that.
 

But I think that's it.  Pretty simple, right?  I love looking back at all the photos I took of the guests, and I know my sister is going to love the photo book once I put all the pics together.  So I missed out on some of the party, but I think it was totally worth it!