A lot of photo booth companies price their photo booths by the hour – after all, many of these photo booths require an attendant to set up the photo booth and stand around while the photo booth runs and your guests use it. Since pricing for attended photo booths is by the hour, a common question is “how long should I rent a photo booth for”. The answer varies, and it will depend a on your wedding and what your plans are. Note that if you use a DIY photo booth rental, you don’t really have to worry about the number of hours and the cost overall will be much cheaper?
How long should you rent a photo booth for?Â
Our recommendation is to have the photo booth for the entire duration of your wedding reception, 4 to 6 hours.
In addition to creating a whole new string of candid memories of your event, a photo booth creates a “thing to do” at a wedding when you are not dancing, eating or filling up your next cocktail. It can be a great way for people for people to meet and congregate. Sometimes, people just need a thing to do, or an excuse to talk to someone they don’t know, or just start act silly and have fun. A photo booth helps people your guests to mix with each other to get loose and have fun.
Because the photo booth is one part of the wedding experience, and since wedding receptions are kind of unpredictable, it’s best to try to have the photo booth for as long as possible. Wedding receptions have an energy all their own and the energy flows all over the place at different times. The photo booth maximizes your guest’s chance at serendipity, of having something fun and amazing happening out of the blue (and captured on camera!).Â
On a budget and need to be careful with the number of hours? First check our guide to wedding photo booth costs. Then consider if you had to pick, you’d want the photo booth set up for the “after the meal” time frame of the wedding – so later in the night, any time is good, but, for a good hour during the meal, your guest are occupied, so you won’t get as many photos then.Â
One of the benefits of a DIY photo booth rental is that you don’t have to worry about hours, and you can have it for the whole wedding reception (and often the night before too!). you can capture great candid, fun photos of all your loved ones at the wedding. It can be a great, candid, time capsule of the moment that can be just as valuable as your professional photographer.