Disposable cameras for guests--anyone done this?

A cousin did this one for every table she was not to pleased with a bunch of pictures of guys and girls private parts and some people took the camera's home with them...so just be prepared for those pics as well

I agree with Amy. In my experience, you'll get mostly unwanted photos; privates, pictures of the food, pictures of peoples eyes and that hangy ball thing in the back of their mouth. I advise against it.

We don't have anyone who would do that. Our crowd is older family members who would never dream of something like that.

I heave heard that they are a waste... people take pictures you could care less about, kids get them and take pictures of nothing (table cloths, the floor, etc).. everyone has a camera these days, or a camera phone.. I think that the days of doing this are kind of over with the technology these days..

And then you have to pay to develop a ton of pictures that are potentially of nothing.

Just my 2 cents

I was considering doing this and adding an "I Spy" game to each table so the guests would have some direction and inspiration on how to use the cameras.

My group has too many youthful 20/30 years olds, so while not afraid of pictures of body parts, I do know some cameras have gone home with guests from other weddings. So, if I go this route, I am going to look for a polite way to phrase "leave the frickin' camera here" on the I Spy game cards.

Please don't do it

Don't waste your money on them. You will pay to develop all that film and will end up with a lot of garbage. With the amount of your guests that will have digital cameras on them, just let them use their Own camera and place little upload cards on the table or the favors asking your guests to send you photos.

read up on someone else's bad luck with developing....

https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/thinking-of-table-cameras/88a3d656645ed12a.html

We have mostly older family members and only 2 children, who are in the wedding. Most of them don't have the internet and they don't have camera phones (my MOM included).

Unfortunately, we have families who are NOT technological. This is why I thought of this idea instead. I am WELL over $2,000 UNDER budget, so I wouldn't mind developing the pics--considering we'd probably use only about 20 of them. And these are very low income people--they don't really have cameras, either. We are paying for them to come or they wouldn't even be coming.

But, I have a friend who is really into photography and he's "assigned" to do these kinds of pics for us anyway...I was trying to figure out how to get family pictures. Our photographer is most likely not staying through lunch because it's not a reception so there isn't much to take at $150 an hour just of people eating haha.

I also have a language barrier, so trying to get people to understand how to get us pictures that they might take is going to be difficult...unless they just left the cameras there for us.

Thanks for the input. I'll see if I can figure something else out.

Sounds like your mind is made up on using them.

The poem idea is a nice one

I would only recommend if you were doing an "I Spy" Otherwise, seriously, you wind up with expensive developing costs for crappy pics. An "I Spy" gives the guests something to take pictures of.

We are doing the I Spy cards and 2 cameras at each table (for those who don't have their own digital camera) I have a basket that is going on the guest book table for the camera return. I am also doing the cards from wedding turtle so guests have a place to upload their digital pics for us to see.

Do you have any friends that are computer savvy?

Anyone you trust with your laptop? You can buy one of these upload readers and have everyone bring their camera over to your laptop. They would just need to pop out their memory card and the pictures can be saved in a folder. It even reads the TINY cards out of smart phones and costs less than $4 to buy. I have this one and it works great for the price.

http://www.amazon.com/Zeikos-Flash-Memory-Reader-ZE-CR201/dp/B001T9N0R6

I say don't waste your money on them. These days 3 out of 5 people have some sort of camera phone do an I Spy instead.

You will get so many unwanted shots from the disposable cameras.

Hi Crisanda,

I was thinking about getting a bunch of used digital cameras off ebay instead of the disposable ones. I've seen them for $10-15 each.

No, my mind isn't made up. That's why I asked for input.

Hayley, our situation is really different from anyone else's on this board. Neither one of us has friends coming to the wedding, except for one couple from Europe (we are pretty much loners or the "friends" we have are too far away to come--plus it's a weekday morning wedding) and the family members that are coming will most likely not even have cameras. They are mostly seniors with no money and no tech knowledge.

I'm not bringing a laptop because we are travelling immediately on our honeymoon to a place with no internet access so I'm leaving it at home (we are getting married out of town as well). However, that thing is cool and I might buy it for ME haha.

No one is gonna understand "I Spy"--but I did get a wedding turtle page (for my photographer friend--not THE photographer) with the cards that they send out for anyone who does manage to bring a camera. That's why I thought of the disposable ones.

I think in your situation it would work, it sounds like you are having a very small guest list as well and so you wouldn't have 75+ cameras to develop and you don't have any immature people that would be silly with it.

In your situation it may work but I still don't think you need 50. Not everyone is going to use them.

Waste of money. Everyone there will have a cell phone or a digital camera, and the disposables are not going to be necessary.

I would bet about 50% wouldn't use them all and the guest list is at 60 now. I KNOW we are going to have at least another 20 decline....just waiting on those RSVPs.

But, people might forget to return them or leave them (or even understand that they are not FAVORS to keep), so maybe with my language and age barrier, it's not such a great idea.

In the meantime since I posted this, FH tells me his mom snaps 10,000 photos of EVERYTHING with her camera (surprised she has one because she doesn't work and doesn't leave the house except to grocery shop and go to church!) so he said we will have some pics from her. And our camera will be there--somewhere...

Maybe I'll compromise and buy just 20 and have them there in case someone forgot their camera or something and leave it at that.

@Celia, I don't know if you saw above, but there aren't going to be cell phones and digital cameras with this crowd. Maybe 1 in 10 will have one (and we only probably 40 coming).

This is a bad idea. If nothing else, most disposable cameras you can buy are 2-3 years old. The developer chemicals in them have gone bad.

And don't rule out embarrassing pictures just because your crowd is older. We had a WW bride who got a picture back of her own Grandma pooping. True story.

In addition- the flashes on them will be very distracting when your professional photographer tries to get their shots in.