This might read like sponsored love to Polaroid, but I swear to you its not. Its just my personal real love for Polaroid!
Two years ago I went to the wedding of a good friend & she did something for escort cards that one might call, Surprise & Delight! What she had done was found an image of each of her guests/couples, be it from her personal stock, Facebook , etc and printed them out. She then wrote the names & their corresponding table numbers onto the back of each image. Ultimately she hung them all up laundry style, stringing up long lines of clothes pinned images. It was surprise & delight as guest arent expecting to see images of themselves at someone’s wedding! I’m not gonna lie, this totally played into my ego & I was like OH! How lovely! A pic of me! It made me smile wide and then I happily trotted off to my table. This is a super simple & wonderful way to really incorporate your guest into your wedding. I’m sorry I dont have a photo of this. I get an F!
I came across a different take on that same idea just the other day, which is basically the reverse of my friend’s idea. The plan here was simple escort cards were again strung up laundry style, but in this case, the couple asked the guests to take a candid photo on the spot with a Polaroid camera of themselves to replace their escort cards! I can not not express enough how much I love this idea!!! Its yet another way to bring your guests into the wedding & really let them know they mean so much more to you then just an attendant of a wedding. I can only imagine some of the amazing photos this brought the couple!
We also played with Polaroid for our wedding! Some where along the line I decided I didnt want a conventional guest book & what evolved after some very off beat ideas, was taking our scrapbook & opening it up to our guest. To make it work, I bought a ton of scrap book extras, markers, etc so the art work could flow! We also set up a photo op area for our guest to really mug it up for the camera! We bought fun masks, made hand held funny cut outs & so on. The results are amazing & adorable. I kid you not when I tell you that when we woke the morning after our wedding, my husband and I sat in bed and finally went through the scrapbook that had so much love & fun going through it. It was a great morning and I really think it was something that gave our guests a creative avenue to express themselves at our wedding well as know let them know how much we really valued them. From what I hear, it was a major hit!
Polaroid has some great consumer cameras these days that are pretty straight forward and easy to use. The costs of the cameras are incredibly reasonable, but I wont lie, its the film that can kill you. Granted, if you let it get out of hand that is! The Polaroid 300 Instant Camera is a great buy at only $69.99, however you can find a lot of market place sellers on sites like Amazon that are selling the camera & a few boxes of film as a bundle. Its such a wonderful addition to any wedding, & if you have ever explored Photo Booths, while they are wonderful, they are defiantly not your cheapest option. I highly advise incorporating a Polaroid Camera into your wedding!