9 Ways a Photo Booth Helps You Personalize Your Wedding and Please Your Guests

Personalized Thank You Card

Thank you card“DJ Johnny Only, Thank you so much for making our reception a blast. You kept everyone on the dance floor all night. You even picked great intro songs for us, since we forgot to pick some! The Photobooth was perfect! Our guests loved it and left us with some funny pictures. The Album you made for us to keep is wonderful. Thanks again for your hard work, we really enjoyed it!” ~Tim & Shannon



One of the ways to personalize your wedding reception is to put more of YOU into it.

The biggest ‘YOU’ is who you decide to invite as your guests; your family and your closest friends.

So, the best way to further personalize your reception is add things that include and involve your family and closest friends.

Choose things that help them to socialize. Help them to celebrate with you and with each other.

Take food for example: The bride and groom personalize the menu, but every person is included in the meal and every person can get involved together. Dining with the bride and groom is a personalized celebratory experience for everyone alike.

I believe that a photo booth can provide a similar personalized experience for both the bridal couple and their guests. It helps people to socialize while giving each person the freedom to celebrate in their own way.

Below are 9 of the ways I see this happening.

#1) A photo booth is something that your guests can DO instead of watching!

Yes, your guests love to sit and watch you do all the things you do on your wedding day! (That is because they love you!)

But gosh, wouldn’t it be fun for them to DO something too?
Binghamton Photo booth fun with DJ Johnny Only

Like take pictures and write things in your scrapbooked photo guestbook that you receive at the end!

#2) Guests get to see their own picture right next to your name and your wedding date!

Yes, your guests love to sit and watch you get your picture taken all day long! (That is because they love you!)

But hey! Don’t you think they’d like to get their picture taken too?

And not with a cell phone – that is too every-day-ho-hum-ishy.

They want to get their picture taken in your official instant-printing-out-on-real-photo-paper-wedding-day-photo-booth!

It helps that their photo strip is customized with your names, wedding colors, and wedding date.
Wedding photo booth guest photo-scrapbook

Afterall, you are the celebrities and everybody wants to be with you on your wedding day!

#3) Your guests get to see their own picture in lights!

Full photo strip johnny and mikayla photoboothScan10109

Our photo booth has a feature that allows us to export the pictures it takes to a flat screen or projector as they are being taken.

This is a way for you to share some of your spotlight with your guests, offering each of them their own 60 seconds of fame at your reception.

#4 People start laughing behind that curtain!

It is amazing how much fun people have with a camera behind a curtain!

Wedding Photo Booth
Spontaneous fun!

They forget their problems and become like kids again -just having genuine FUN!

There is nothing more personal than that!

#5) Your guests get to use their own creativity to pose for their pictures and to write their own well-wishes to you!

They also write unrelated, funny and/or unexpectedly sweet things to you in your photo guestbook (that we provide) – I am always surprised how creative people become as the evening progresses!
Johnny Only-Photo Booth-0001

People really ‘get into it’ and that is the ultimate personalization!

#6) Our photo booth helps your guests to socialize by delivering a uniquely personal experience!

Not only do guests connect by getting in the photo together, but we also supply props with our photo booth that help people to drop their guard and be more … human.
Johnny Only-Photo Booth-0003

What could be better to help build new family ties and to help solidify old ones?

#7) You can personalize a placecard that fits in a photo booth frame.

The placecard can be in the frame that is going to hold the photo strip and it can include instructions about the photo booth.

Most couples choose 2 x 6 photo strips, but our booth can be set to print out 4 x 6 as well, so you could do 4 x 6 frames if you wanted.
photobooth custom-place-card-insert-and-frame

All dressed up for a wedding? What better time is there for a couple to get a photo?

#8) Your Guests get to take home a photo strip as a highly personalized wedding favor.

My favorite idea is to offer them a protective sleeve with a magnetized back for the photostrips.

Your wedding favor to them is going to stay on the refridgerator and be talked about everytime they open the door -for decades! It has your names/date with their picture.

What could be better than that?
photoboothframes_1

They will keep it forever and like your love for one another, your wedding reception will never be forgotton!


#9) You get a kick out of emailing their high resolution photos afterwards.

You receive all of the digital images on a flashdrive at the end of your reception.

Email them to your guests or post them on their facebook timelines as blackmail photos, renewed connections, smiles, laughter and things to talk about long after your reception is over!

All of those benefits, just because you added a photo booth!

Now that is what I call personalization!


Class Reunion Party Tips, Activities & Ice-Breakers

Class Reunion tips, activities
Music: It goes without saying that a significant amount of the music should be from the years close to the graduation. But the DJ should still avoid the clunkers and stick to the hits of that era. As the evening progresses, (depending on what year of graduation) guests will start to request newer songs for dancing.

Volume: Class reunions have a very strong social element (meaning people want to be able to talk while the music is playing) so the music volume should reflect that. Yes, the volume should raise as the dance-floor fills, but people who haven’t see each other in years (or decades) want to talk when they are not dancing.

Activities and Ice-breakers: Don’t put them all together, sprinkle them throughout the evening to keep it interesting for guests.

Mock awards for who traveled the farthest, who traveled the least distance, who lives closest to the school, who married their high school sweetheart, who came back to get a job at the school, who still lives in the same address since graduation, who has moved the most times since graduation … your imagination is the limit…

A welcome from the class president – or homecoming queen or … maybe just the head of the reunion committee

A toast to the class of ’65

A blessing before the meal for parochial schools.

Passing the wireless microphone from alumni to alumni – this works best while everyone is sitting – the person with mic stands up so everyone can see them and then say their name, introduce their date if the have one- and then say a few details about their life (what they say is optional) but, when I am the MC for this activity, I encourage them to say where they live, what they do or did professionally, and then finish off with a personal detail or two. The mic is then passed to the next alumni. Works well during coffee service while people are still sitting -or even in between courses (depending on the type of meal service you have) Obviously this would be prohibitive if you get more than 100 or so alumni.

Door prizes are always fun.

Class of (insert year of graduation) trivia is always fun: questions made up that only people who went to the school would be able to answer. ie, what was the name of the math teacher who taught ______ . Name one of the novels you had to read for 12th grade English. What team was played against for homecoming that year. Who was the Prom King and Queen. what was the name of the principal of the school… You can do that activity unstructured (which means the MC asks the question and then confirms the answer after somebody shouts it out/no score kept.) Or you can do it structured, where there is an answer sheet. Scores are kept track of and prizes given after drawing randomly from all the correct answer sheets.

Team trivia (general questions) from the year of graduation. Tables work as a team to get the correct answers. Questions can include things like price of gas, or movie, or car, or issues in politics or news worthy events from that year,

Uplighting around the room in the school colors is always nice.

Consider the school logo or mascot projected on the wall or dancefloor.

Depending on availability, pictures from the year book can be digitized and put on a plasma screen or projected on a screen.

A Photo Booth would be great fun too! It is the perfect icebreaker. The pictures make a fantastic party favor and what better time than a reunion for lot’s of pictures!

How our photo booth helps fill your dance floor.

Binghamton Photo booth fun with DJ Johnny Only

Our photo booth at your wedding reception actually helps people to get up and dance. Let me tell you how.

Wedding Photo Booth
Spontaneous fun!

Your guests get behind that curtain and start laughing! They can’t help themselves! They loosen up and forget their troubles! When was the last time you wanted to dance while feeling grumpy and stressed?

People start dancing AFTER they are relaxed and having fun. The photo booth helps them to do that!

photo booths are romantic
All dressed up and ready to smile!

Photo booths are romantic! Couples get behind the curtain and lean together, snuggle up, and kiss.

What better way to get your man on the dance floor then by sparking a bit of chemistry first?

Binghamton Photo booth fun with DJ Johnny Only

Two identical photo strips print out immediately; one for your photo guest book and one for guests to take home. They make a fantastic wedding favor. They are personalized with your name, wedding date and your guest’s own picture. Unlike many favors that are discarded after a week or two, this is a wedding favor they will treasure, post to facebook, put on their refrigerator, and keep forever.

This helps to fill the dance floor by making them feel closer to you -reminding people that they are here to celebrate your marriage! It makes them want to party with you!

Wedding photo booth guest photo-scrapbook

Johnny Only’s Photo Booth at your wedding reception

I have never seen people laugh harder than they do in our photo booth! People dance more when they are laughing and that makes our photo booth a perfect icebreaker to help get your party going! Includes unlimited sittings, a helpful professional attendant, scrapbook/photo-guestbook supplies, dress up props, customizable text on header and footer of strips, duplicate strips for each sitting and high resolution digital copies of all the images for you (the hosts) at the end.

Newly weds enjoy Johnny Only's wedding photobooth
Newlyweds behind the curtains in Johnny's photo booth.

Photo booth mustache props
Johnny's mustache props for his photo booth are very popular!

DJ wedding photobooth from Johnny Only
You will love your signed photo booth scrapbook guestbook and you will receive all of the high resolution digital images as well.

Photo strip becomes a personalized favor for your guests.
Photo strip becomes a personalized favor for your guests.

two duplicate photo strips print out right away
Two duplicate photo strips print out right away.

The header and footer or your photo strips can be customized.
photo booth attendant helping guest place strip and sign scrapbook
My daughter as photo booth attendant helping guest place strip and sign scrapbook.
dj weddings photobooth props uplights
More photo booth props. More fun!
Scrapbook creativity from your enthusiastic guests!
dj weddings photobooth colorful props
Photo booth props add to the fun.
pointing out props for the photo booth
Photo booth -pictured behind me -comes with optional props to double the fun!

Johnny’s photobooth rocks at weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs and parties!

Bat Mitzvah Demo from Creative Video on Vimeo.

If you watch(ed) the Bat Mitzvah Demo Video on Vimeo from Creative Video, you can see they are quite different from weddings. There are lot’s of games and group dances for the kids at a Bar/Bat Mitzvah reception. I am the MC/DJ working behind all of the dancing and party shots. if you want to see my face, check the 3:14 mark.
Videography courtesy of my friend Jim Winslow of Creative Video Productions.

Bat Mitzvah
Bat Mitzvah that Rocked!!