Crazy prop ideas for Photo Booths

Great “themed” props ideas may be a bit out there for some brides, but can be used as a starting place for you to think up your very own photo booth ideas.

1. Western
Purchase a few children’s Pony-On-A-Stick toys, a bunch of huge cowboy hats, fake mustaches – both the press-on stickers & the mustache on a stick kind, a few prop guns, and some bandanas. Yee-Haw.

2. Royalty
Pretending to be majestic Kings and Queens will surely inspire tons of amazing photos! Pick up a handful of tiaras, a few septors, robes, crowns and anything else that screams royalty. If you want, you can include jester hats, rolled fancy scrolls and gaudy custom jewelry, for a bit of variety.

We also highly recommend picking up some “thrones” for guests to sit on. You can either search around for gaudy seats at local garage sales, or find two chairs that you are willing to sacrifice and spray paint them.

3. Tub Time
Find an old bathtub or create a large cardboard cut-out of one. The plus side of having a cardboard bath is that you can make several, and guests can easily pick them up and pose with them.

Then, buy a few brightly-hued bath poofs, colored empty shampoo bottles, rubber duckies, shower caps, goggles, toy boats, and one or two long-handled bath brushes. Guests will have tons of fun!

4. Beauty Pageant
Buy lots of plastic tiaras, a prop microphone, batons and a flashlight (to use as a “spotlight”).

Then make lots of sashes and select a theme for your sash titles. You can use the states (Miss California), traditional awards (Miss Congeniality), or something else entirely. There’s a lot of room for personal style/humor and inside jokes.

5. Beach Party
Buy some blue fabric and cut out “waves” to use on a wall as a background, or pick up a cheap inflatable pool.

Then, pull together huge floppy hats, crazy sunglasses (the bigger, the better), sand toys, pool noodles, arm floaties, and anything else you would take to the beach. Having a large beach ball, a lawn chair (with a colorful beach umbrella) and a few empty sunscreen bottles makes it easy for guests to come up with funny poses, and even more hilarious photos.

6. Halloween Grab-Box
Pick up crazy and random boas, masks, props and whatever else you think your guests would like to pose with. These types of items are often on clearance, or can be found at a dollar store.

Happy Hunting!

Article by: http://switchcam.com

How To Put Together Your Wedding Slide Show

One of my all-time-favorite couples tied the knot last year after nearly 10 years together and decided they wanted to feature images of their life thus far as part of their wedding reception. She's a set designer and he's an architect and given the nature of their careers and their quest for adventure, it seems there isn't a corner of the world they haven't traveled hand-in-hand. So, after much discussion, they put together an awe-inspiring slide show of their favorite images in iPhoto, burned them on to a disk and projected the show onto the tent wall at the beginning of the wedding reception

When I first heard they were going to do that I worried it would seem silly, but it ended up being breathtaking. As guests walked into the tent, their eyes were met with images of the couple on vacation, studying in the library (they met at UCLA), holding hands at another friend's wedding and just hanging out. Of course, the "projection screen" was framed by a table with candles and beautiful flowers, which seemed to soften the images. It was marvelous.

If you're interested in making a wedding slide show there are two ways to do it. You can create a slide show of old images (like my friends did) and share them at the actual wedding or you can create a slide show post the wedding put it on your wedding website - or better yet, host a post honeymoon party where you invite the bridal party to come relish the beautiful images from your wedding day. For my tips on creating a great slide show, just read more

I really prefer soundless slide shows, especially if are planning on showing yours at your actual wedding. Still, many people like to add a musical touch to their slide shows for a dramatic effect.

1. Shorter is sometimes better - Ultimate wedding says that video montages that are between 8 - 12 minutes in length are ideal for wedding receptions. This usually works out to about 3 songs and 75-100 pictures. "While you can certainly display more photos during your slide show, you want to be careful not to subject your guests to an extremely long slide show." 

2. Choose Quality Photographs - Pictures that look great printed (correct lighting, framing, developed properly) will also look great while scanned. 

3. Add short video clips - Do you have any home videos sitting around gathering dust? Think about adding perhaps a 10-15 second video clip in the middle of the slide show. 

4. Add motion to your slide shows - Slide shows developed on PowerPoint and other consumer level software will typically be just static photos that go from one picture to the next.

5. Test! Test! Test! - Remember watching your science teacher struggle with the overhead projector? Don't create a moment like that at your wedding or post-wedding party. Have everything set up and ready to go before guests arrive.


Need Help?
• Don't want to do it yourself? Businesses like DVD Photographs will make a slide show for you for $79. Print shops and photo developers at drug stores also help you put your photos together by turning them into slides or a disk for a small fee.

• You can make a slide show on flickr or Photobucket and easily embed it on your wedding website.

Good luck!

Article by Kristy Korcz

Decor Uplighting for Weddings and Events

What Equipment is Used for Uplighting?
Previously, traditional lamp Par Cans were used for up lighting. Traditional par cans are known for getting very hot, taking up alot of electricity and being a mild fire hazard. To change the color, its necessary to manually place a colored piece of plastic, known as a "gel" of the lamp.

In recent years, LED par cans have become much more widely used. These LED cans consume a very low amount of power, do not pose a fire risk, and do not become hot. They are also much more flexible, as their color (and strength) can be controlled digitally, without having to use gels.

Most professionals who use LED uplighting will also use a special digital controller in conjunction with the lights.

How to Hire a Professional for Uplighting
First off, if you were curious as to whether you might be able to do the uplighting yourself, rather than hiring a professional-this would be somewhat problematic, since the cost of investing in uplighting equipment is quite high, as well as the fact that, the difference between a professional and amateur uplighting set-up can be quite significant.

As far as how to seek out a professional to provide uplighting...
Most DJ companies provide their expertise at applying uplighting at a reasonable rate-so that's almost always the best starting point. Alternately you can seek out an event management company, a theatrical company, or (in some cities) an uplighting company (yes, there are some companies that entirely base their business on providing uplighting).

You'll probably find that there are many possible venders to choose from in your area. So you're now in a position to try to judge which one will provide the most quality (and value) to you. It's a subjective judgement for you to make-but the best place to start is to ask to see the uplighting portfolios of the venders you're considering. Most companies that provide uplighting have photos (and possibly videos) to show prospective clients. Also its important to chat with them to get a sense of whether they'll be able to communicate well with you and set up the lighting in accordance with your preferences.

Article by: http://www.squidoo.com/uplighting

Is Uplighting Right for Me?

To uplight or not to uplight, that is the question.

At best it can greatly enhance your event, helping to make it more lively, elegant, and visually stunning. At worse, it can potentially look tacky and essentially cheapen your event.

First off, no matter what any one says, uplighting is never absolutely necessary. It's a personal decision to make, as to whether or not you want it.

If you're in the decision making process, the first thing you'll probably end up considering, is whether or not you can fit uplighting into your budget. If you don't have it in your budget, well, it's not the end of the world.

Like many people, though, maybe you're a perfectionist and you want every aspect of your event to be wonderful on your special day. So in that case, my first recommendation is to consider what the character of the room is-does the room have character to it or is it a plain room. If its a plain room, than almost definitely up lighting would be an improvement. If you room already looks excellent as is-uplighting could potentially make it even more stunning (but at the same time might not be a big improvement, or might be a bad thing, especially if the color of the up lights clashed with the natural color balance of the room).

Should you trust your intuition? Yes, I don't see why not. If you have a gut feeling one way or another, it might not be a bad idea to go with it. Otherwise it's probably a good idea to consult with the venue manager (they'll surely have an opinion and also will be able to provide you with some perspective about whether or not their clients usually opt for uplighting). Of course you can get some good (but potentially biased) advice/perspective from a DJ, Audio Visual, or up lighting company too.

Regardless, don't rush into make a decision. Think it over and figure out whats feels right to you.

Article by: http://www.squidoo.com/uplighting

Uplighting for Weddings, Events and Private Parties

What is this Uplighting?
Quite simply, it's a series of lights, set up around a room (or outside a building), placed on or near the floor, shining up toward the walls. The lights could be any color, from a white to a red to green (or whatever else). When they're implemented, the house lights at the venue can be dimmed. When used properly, uplighting can greatly enhance the ambiance of the room in a very elegant way.

I should also note that there are two different "school of thought" regarding uplighting. The first is to focus on subtlety. In this way of applying up lighting, the focus is on having the lighting complement the venue/event, but not allowing it to distract. One of the characteristics of this is that there will just be one color at a time. Although, potentially someone may decide that they periodically want the color of the uplighting changed (for example, red uplights during dinner, and blue uplights during dancing). Personally, when I provide uplighting, I fall into this first way of approaching uplighting, by putting my focus on applying it tastefully and in a subtle way.

While most A/V professionals share a similar philosophy, others shun subtlety and prefer to use up lighting in a way that that is completely opposite. Those that fall into this second uplighting "school of thought" will apply uplighting in a more flamboyant manor, programming the up lights to constantly change colors, and sometimes even using them to act like a strobe light. I'm not saying that one way is wrong and the other is right-but it's something to keep in mind, as the results between these methods will vary dramatically.

At this point, I'm going to post some pictures and videos for you to look at. After you view them, you can scroll down and I will further discuss uplighting.