Is a Photo Booth Worth It at a Wedding? An Honest Answer

For most weddings with 60 or more evening guests, yes, a photo booth is worth it. It fills the dead time between the meal and the first dance, doubles as your guest book and your wedding favours, and it is one of the few things on the budget that guests actually take home. Where it stops being worth it is at very small weddings, or in venues with genuinely no floor space, and in those cases there is a better-value option we will get to below.

We have run photo booths at over 500 events across Lancashire and the North West, so we have seen the bookings that flew and the handful where a booth was honestly the wrong call. This is the answer we give couples who ring us and ask the question straight.

When a photo booth is genuinely worth it

A booth earns its money in four specific situations. If your wedding ticks two or more of these, it will get used hard all night.

You have 60 or more evening guests

Booth queues are a good sign. With a decent-sized evening do, the booth runs more or less continuously from the moment we open it, and the cost per guest works out at a couple of pounds a head. With 150 evening guests at a venue like The Glass House at Staining, which seats 150 for the meal and takes 250 plus in the evening, a booth is one of the cheapest per-head decisions on the whole budget.

Your day has dead time built into it

Every wedding has a lull. The obvious one is the turnaround between the wedding breakfast and the evening reception, when the room is being flipped and guests are stood around with a drink. The other is the gap between evening guests arriving and the first dance. A booth gives people something to do in both windows, which matters most for guests who do not dance and for the awkward stretch where daytime and evening guests are mixing for the first time.

Your guest list spans generations

A DJ mainly entertains the dancers. A booth entertains everyone from your nan to your mates from work, and it is usually the grandparents' photos that end up being the favourites. Our trained attendant, who comes with every booth hire, helps anyone who is unsure, so nobody is left fiddling with a touchscreen.

You want a guest book people will actually fill in

A plain guest book left on a table gets a page of "congratulations both" and not much else. A booth with a guest book album attached gets a printed photo stuck next to every message, and guests write far more next to a daft picture of themselves. We have a whole post on photo booth guest book ideas if you want to see how couples set this up.

When a photo booth is not worth it

We would rather tell you this before you book than have you find out on the night.

Very small weddings

Under about 40 guests, a booth can sit quiet for stretches of the evening. Everyone uses it once early on, and then it waits. It still works if your 40 guests are a lively crowd, and we have written separately about photo booths at small and intimate events, but if budget is tight, a small wedding is where we would spend the money elsewhere.

No space at the venue

A booth needs roughly 2m x 2m of level floor near a standard plug socket, plus a bit of room for the queue. Most function rooms have that. Some genuinely do not, especially older pubs and tightly packed dining rooms where every square metre is tables. If your venue coordinator winces when you mention it, believe them.

The better option for both cases: an audio guest book

If numbers or space rule a booth out, an audio guest book from £129 is what we suggest instead. It is a retro telephone that sits on a side table, takes up no floor space at all, and records voicemail-style messages from your guests all night. For small weddings it is arguably better than a booth, because with 30 guests you can realistically get a message from every single person there. Plenty of couples at bigger weddings book both, and we cover why in our post on whether an audio guest book is a wedding must-have.

What it actually costs, and what you get back

Our photo booth hire starts at £179, with 4 hours included and extra hours at £40 each. A £75 deposit secures your date, and travel is free within 10 miles of our Thornton-Cleveleys base, then 50p per mile round trip beyond that. The full breakdown, including magic mirrors from £229 and selfie pods from £180, is on our pricing page, and we have an honest cost guide in how much does photo booth hire cost.

The way to judge value is to compare it against what it replaces rather than looking at the number on its own:

• Wedding favours. Favours at a few pounds a head across 100 guests costs a similar amount to the booth, and most favours get left on the table. Printed booth photos go home in pockets and end up on fridges.
• A guest book. A decent album plus pens is money you no longer need to spend separately, and the booth version gets filled properly.
• A second photographer for the evening. Your photographer often leaves after the first dance. The booth captures the evening do, which is the part of the day with the fewest professional photos and the most fun in it.
• The digital gallery. You get every image from the night afterwards, not just the prints, so nothing is lost to someone's camera roll.

Every hire includes the trained attendant, and our kit is PAT tested and covered by £5M public liability insurance, which most venues now ask to see before they will let a supplier through the door.

What real couples do with the prints and guest book

The pattern we see again and again across our gallery of past events is the same. Guests take one print home and stick the duplicate in the guest book album with a message. The couple wake up the day after the wedding with a finished album on the gift table, no chasing anyone for photos, and a gallery link to share with everyone who could not make it.

At venues we work at regularly, like The River Barn on the banks of the Wyre near Poulton-le-Fylde, the booth photos also do a job the formal photography cannot: they catch the evening guests, the ones who were only there for the party and would otherwise appear in nobody's album at all.

If you are weighing up a booth against a mirror, our comparison of magic mirror vs photo booth for weddings goes through the differences properly.

Our honest bottom line

Book a booth if you have 60 plus evening guests, a venue with a spare corner, and any dead time in your running order. Skip it and book an audio guest book instead if your wedding is small or your venue is tight on space. We would rather point you at the £129 option that suits your day than take £179 for a booth that sits quiet, which is roughly how we have ended up with a 5.0 rating from 64 Google reviews.

You can see how it works on our weddings page, or check your date and hold it with the £75 deposit.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a photo booth cost for a wedding?

Our photo booth hire starts at £179 with 4 hours included, and extra hours are £40 each. A £75 deposit secures the date, travel is free within 10 miles of FY5, and a trained attendant is included on every booking. Full details are in our cost guide.

How much space does a wedding photo booth need?

Around 2m x 2m of level floor near a standard plug socket, plus a little queueing room. Most function rooms manage this easily. If your venue genuinely cannot fit it, an audio guest book from £129 sits on a side table and needs no floor space at all.

What hours should the photo booth be open at a wedding?

The evening do, every time. The 4 included hours are best spent from roughly the start of the evening reception through to about an hour before the end of the night, so the booth covers evening guests arriving, the first dance crowd, and the point in the evening when everyone is relaxed enough to use the props properly. Opening it during the meal wastes hours, because guests are sat eating.

Is a photo booth worth it for a small wedding?

Usually not under about 40 guests, and we will tell you that if you ask. An audio guest book suits small weddings better, because you can realistically capture a message from every guest, and it costs less at £129.