Disposable Cameras

Cuppycake10

For our engagement party, I was thinking of putting a disposable camera on each table. I feel like it may be a waste because practically everyone has a digital camera nowadays. What do you think?

Heather822

My mom and stepdad did this at there wedding.
It turned out to be not worth the cost of buying / developing them.
A lot of people just took dumb pictures / pics of the floor / etc.
Ten tables, with one camera each that took 24 exposures yielded us about 8 good pictures.
I'd skip it....

mbcdefg

I agree ... we got a ton of photos from our friends' digital cameras at our wedding. One friend sent us nearly 200 fantastic photos while we were on our honeymoon, my sister's boyfriend uploaded a bunch to Facebook within a week, and we got about 120 pictures from the photo-sharing website we set up (we put business cards at every place setting).

I would save your money and not buy disposables, especially since most of those pictures come out like crap anyway. Just spread the word to friends to bring their cameras and send you the photos.

felicia220

I understand that a lot of times it is not worth it, but I still think it is a neat idea if you have the right crowd for it.  We have actually had a lot of people ask if we were doing this at the wedding, but we aren't because we have 3 photographers.  My mom did it for her 50th birthday a while back and it actually turned out great, and she got tons of pictures, so like I said I think it really depends on your crowd and whether they would do it or not.  

NJMom050911

We were considering this for our wedding but with the cost of the cameras and developing the film when there is a high chance of crappy pics, we decided to go with a photobooth instead.

jtheiss

Don't do it! My cousin had disposables on each table at her wedding and at the end of the night her mom was just running around taking random pics trying to use up all the film. What a waste.

mariaNryan

we did them for our engagement party and had awesome pictures out of them!!! therefore we are doing them for our wedding as well... i went to ebay and bought 12 disposable cameras for 30 bucks on an auction

mrs.amma

if you think that a lot of people are going to be using their digital cameras at your party, maybe you could consider setting up an online album where everyone can upload their pics to one place like Shutterfly. You just have to make up little cards with the account info and brief instructions and hand them out to people at the end of the night.

A few girls on my month board are doing that for their wedding and I thought it was a great idea! I am definitely going to use the idea for our wedding b/c we have a crowd that likes to take digital pics and the older crowd doesn't have FB

USER876

I would do a photo sharing site, but that depends on how net savy your guests are.  Usually 1-2 guests tend to take a ton of pictures and share them with you....perhaps this is sufficient.  Honestly, your photographer should be giving you roughly 1000 pics and should capture just about everything.

Oh and one other thing...the word disposable camera and awesome pics should not be used in the same sentence.

goaliegirl

IMO it is a waste of money!  Like a pp said you will spend money on the cameras and developing and get a few good pictures.   I agree with setting up a photosharing sight, such as shutterfly.   I made little business cards for the wedding and put them on the tables with the directions on how to upload pictures and we ended up with several hundred pics that people took it was great.

uppereastgirl

I only remember being at a wedding with disposable cameras once -- when my first friend to get married tied the knot in 2002.  I think it is obsolete as others have pointed out, but I think it is kind of a dated idea too.

And as I recall, we used the camera at our table to take about 10 photos that were hilarious to us at the time, as we were wasted.  And when you're wasted, ideas like "Let's take a picture of the tablecloth!" are hilarious.  I think that's the type of photos you'll get.  I know I'm no better behaved at an engagement party than at a wedding.

I'm not a great photographer, but I know how nice it is to get wedding photos right away while you're waiting for pro pictures, so I always take as many photos as possible at a wedding I attend, and I try to get them up on a website within a day or two so the couple can see them.  I'd do the same for an engagement party, but probably not as many photos and with less urgency.  We had a lot of people do the same for us at our wedding, which we loved -- we got over 1000 photos from guests (of varying quality, but there were some good ones, and lots that tided us over until we got the pro photos).  We didn't do a photosharing site, but most of the guests who took lots of photos also sent my parents a CD of the photos. 

akmackay

I just think of the Monica/Chandler FRIENDS wedding where they had the disposable cameras and Chandler lost them and had to go back and take pictures at another wedding. Now that's classy.

I think everyone has digital cameras now and those pictures come out much better. Do a photo sharing site, it's free.

Peacefield

Yeah, the day for disposable cameras has passed.  Everyone will pass to you the pictures they took with their personal cameras.  And your pro photographer should be getting some good casual and fun shots of small groups at the table, too.