When booking your photo booth for your wedding or event you must be sure to ask the following questions of whomever you are looking to rent your booth from. Picking the right company can be the difference between an OK experience and an AWESOME experience for you and your guests!
- What comes standard with every package? This one is a basic question. Before booking your photo booth you need to know everything you’ll be getting at the listed price. A low price can sometimes mean hidden cost or poor service or quality offerings. A list of services provided should be given to you.
- What are your fees? We receive a lot of inquiries every day and sometimes customers let us know that they’ve found a lower price on a Groupon or Craigslist deal. Later they find out that the initial quote they received didn’t include all the extra “stuff” fees. Some of these companies are charging fees for mileage, delivery, setup/takedown, props, extra prints, etc. Others are using substandard and even homemade photo booths with poor quality pictures or prints. Remember, sometimes you really do get what you pay for. In short, find the right financial fit. If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is. Quality equipment is an investment, so anyone with lowball prices may be operating a photo booth that isn’t as nice as you might desire.
- Do you have liability insurance? We know, it’s a photo booth, what could possibly happen? Nothing is going to happen, but the reality is, most wedding venues require that outside services have liability insurance in place. This question will also separate the fly-by-night companies from the serious ones. Those who just run a photo booth business on the side probably will not be willing to pay the costs of having insurance.
- What is the quality of the photo booth? This is your wedding or event, it’s one of the most important days of your life, and everything needs to be just perfect. The last thing you want is a beautiful reception area, with an ugly, makeshift photo booth in the corner. We have seen some interesting photo booths out there. Some appear to be homemade, constructed with painted wood, shower rods and curtains attached. Some look really cool and futuristic but read further in this document about quality.
- What is the quality of the photos? It may seem simple, but there is actually a lot that goes into capturing a high-quality photo with a photo booth. Ask the company to see examples of past photos. Do they appear blurry, grainy, or dark? Do they use studio quality lighting or just a standard flash? Proper lighting ensures that the photos are bright and rich.
- What type of props and color of backdrops are they using? Are the props professional grade and do they have enough variety to make the pictures fun and unique? Are the people washed out in the backdrop? We have seen a lot of companies that use a black or white backdrop, which doesn’t work out when the bride is wearing white and the groom wearing black.
- What is the quality of the camera equipment? You want your photos to be clear and the prints to last. Let’s face it, you have one shot at these memories. Be sure to ask what kind of camera the booth features? There are 3 common types of photo booths in today’s market when it comes to the camera taking the pictures…a) DSLR which take the highest studio-quality pictures. Thes booths have real photographer grade cameras inside the booth and usually use studio-grade lighting as well.b) iPad/Tablet which can only take mid-range pictures because the camera lens is so small and the resolution usually low due to using the front-facing camera on the tablet.c) Webcam, which usually means low-quality pictures. This is almost always a good indicator of a homemade booth.
- What kind of printer is used? You want the pictures to last for a lifetime AND you want them to be printed quickly so everyone at your event gets the opportunity to use the photo booth. Standard inkjet and laser printers fall short on both of these points. Only a high quality, high-speed dye-sublimation printer will ensure both points. Dye-Sublimation is the same technology the big photo printers use.
- What type of photo booth is it? There are two types of photo booths out there… “Enclosed” and “Open Air”. There are pros and cons to both types, just be sure you know what you are getting and it is the type you expected. Open-air photo booths usually can take photos of larger groups at one time while enclosed booths can provide a more intimate setting.
- What is meant by “Unlimited Prints”? Be sure to ask what is meant by “unlimited prints” or for that matter are you getting prints at all? Some companies say unlimited but mean something entirely different than what you think of as unlimited. For some it means unlimited sessions (the number of times the camera takes an individual set of pictures) and only 1 or 2 prints per session. If you have 5 people in a session, three or four people are not getting pictures. :o(
- Are there any additional fees? You need to know what your bottom line will be. You don’t want to be surprised that there is a “booking fee” or “additional setup charge”, etc. Some fees are unavoidable and perfectly fine, you should just know what they are up front, agree to them, and not get a surprise later when the invoice arrives.
- What extras are available? Due to technology the photo booth industry has become an amazing service. Many photo booths provide so many cool features such as printed photo and scrap books, green screen, gifs, boomerang, videos, and the list goes on and on. These are usually an upcharge because they do entail extra effort by the booth operator. Just know what your options are and decide whether or not you want the feature added or not.
Those are the top 12 photo booth rental questions on our list but there are a ton of others that warrant mentioning here as well…
Is there an online gallery?
Does your photo booth have the ability to send users digital prints?
Is the delivery, set up and break down part of the price?
What do I need to provide for the event?
How long does it take to set up?
Have you been at my venue before? Do you know where to set up and how much space you need?
Will I get digital copies of all of the photos taken at the event? If so, does it include the customized template, single shot of each picture, or both?
What can & can’t I add to my template? What are my template choices?
Do you provide a memory book/guestbook?
How large are the prints?
Do I need to put down a deposit?
How far in advance should we book?
Do you charge for travel?
We truly hope this list is useful to you and helps you decide the best photo booth option for your wedding, party, or special event. We would consider it an honor to answer all of these questions about our booth for you but wanted to provide you with the right questions to ask no matter who you choose to service your event. You can read our FAQs that answer many of these questions about us [here]. If we can be of any assistance please don’t hesitate to contact us.
