So, one of the biggest wedding trends in the past several years is having a photo booth. The first ones to become popular were those sit-down booths that print out strips of pictures, like they have in the mall. While I thought it was a fun idea, it seemed like a waste of money to me because renting those things are not cheap! But then different kinds of photo booths started showing up on my wedding radar.

These were homemade, personalized to the wedding itself, and run by a friend with a digital camera. Some were as simple as a piece of colorful fabric draped over a dowel to make a backdrop, and some were as fancy as to reproduce a wall, complete with wallpaper and picture frames, with several of the frames cut out so guests can look through them! Some even went so far as to add a couch in front of the wall to create even more dimension. Here's one I love:

I think what I like best about this particular one is the old family photographs hanging alongside the open frames. I love the idea of incorporating wedding photos of our loved ones into our own special day to celebrate marriage.

My daddy has a woodshop at home. When I showed him this idea, he loved it and said we could work on making one for our reception. My future sister (in-law) has volunteered to shoot the pictures for us.

Beyond just having a photo booth set up, we're excited about the idea of using the precious pictures of the guests as our guest book. I must say, I'm not impressed with the idea of a "sign in sheet" for guests, especially because I already know who they are and where they live! I wanted a more creative guestbook anyway, and this would allow it to be so cute!

We've been tossing around the idea of how it would work to create the guest book in advance, and give each person/couple/group a place to sign with a blank on the page where their picture would go, then after the wedding, developing the pictures and pasting them in next to their respective comments.

What do you think? Lots of fun? Or too much work?