Thursday, March 18, 2010

Woot! Won an eBay auction for a Fuji Instax 200 camera for my wedding guests to take pics with!

We all know photo booths at weddings are the rage right now.  While the idea is pretty cool, I thought it might be a bit expensive, and my average guest probably wouldn’t be all that into it.  I did like the idea of instant photos they can take with them and leave some for us, so I looked into instant cameras.  My photographer Lisa Rigby and others recommended the Fuji Instax 200.  I looked on Amazon and they had one with film for around $200, which was a good deal.  Unfortunately, I waited too long and it sold out.

Now Amazon is only offering it on their Marketplace for a whopping $389!  I wasn’t about to spend that, so I turned to eBay.  There seemed to be plenty there so I waited a bit, as my wedding was still a year away at that point.  Recently I picked up my search again, and saw the camera selling for $150 used.  Still a bit steep.

Then I lucked out the other day and saw it for a starting bid of $50, new with 2 packs of film.  Sweet!  I bid $150 and crossed my fingers.  4 days later, I had won it for $81 plus $10 shipping.  Nice!  Now I need more film, as each pack is only 10 pictures, so I have a million bids on film right now.  Still cheaper than Amazon (I love them, but not this time!).

What I’m going to do is set up a table with the camera on it, with a basket labeled “Take 2 pics: one for you, one for us!” so people can leave us pictures.  I’m hoping to set up some sort of backdrop, or maybe I can even move the wedding arch into the reception room for pics.  It’ll be very pretty:


…with these fabrics draped down the back of it:




I think that would look great behind the photos, and it would serve double duty!  After the wedding, we’ll obviously remove the fabric, then the arch is going in our yard.  :)

I’m hoping people really do it.  Instead of a guest book, I bought personalized note cards for people to write us messages on and drop into a vase.  I’ll collect them all in a scrap book, and hopefully I get enough instant pictures to put in with them, ideally matching each picture to each person’s message, or as many as I get.  I think it will make a really great memory and put faces with the names instead of just a guest book I may never look at again.  I’ll have to enlist some people to prompt the guests to take pictures.  It will be near the sweetheart table so maybe I can direct them there after they stop to talk to us.

This is really coming together!  I also recently bought the men’s monogrammed cufflinks and engraved USB flash drive key chains as part of their gifts, and engraved jewelry boxes for the bridesmaids’ jewelry.  That was an almost $350 purchase at ThingsRemembered.com, but totally worth it!  Basically our gifts for them will be their outfits, but since the men are providing their own suits and I bought the ladies’ dresses, I needed another gift for the men, hence the key chains.  We’re buying their shirts and I already bought their ties.  Just waiting on shirt sizes from the guys!  I’m anticipating having to bug them about that, lol.

No comments:

Post a Comment