Most advice about booking a photobooth starts with “book twelve months ahead”, which is excellent advice andcompletely useless if your wedding is in three weeks.
It is the third week of August. We are inthe middle of the busiest run of our year, and every week at the moment we getthe same call: someone whose evening entertainment has fallen through, or whohas just realised there is a four-hour gap between the meal and the end of thenight with nothing in it, or whose venue has asked what is happening in thecorner of the room that nobody has planned for.
So this is the post for people who haveleft it late. Short answer: it is far more possible than you would think, andit costs you nothing to ask.
What’s actually still available
Cancellations happen. Dates open up. And the calendar is not evenlybooked — the picture varies a lot depending on when you are looking:
This September and October. Saturdaysare tight but not gone, and midweek and Sunday dates are genuinely open. Autumnis one of the best-value times of year to book anything for a wedding.
Weekday and Sunday events, any time. Much more availability than Saturdays, always.
November. Quieter than people expect,before the Christmas party season takes hold.
December. The middle two weekends arethe hardest dates in our year to get. Midweek in December is much moreavailable and often better value.
The honest version: if your date is a Saturday in the next sixweeks, ring us today rather than tomorrow. If it is midweek, or in November, oryou have any flexibility at all, there is a good chance we can help.
What we need to know
We can usually give you an answer in one phone call if you havethese to hand:
1. The date, and roughly what hours you want the booth running
2. The venue — name and town is enough to start
3. Which floor the event is on, and whether there is a lift
4. Roughly how many guests
That is it. From those four things we can tell you whether we have aunit free, which one would suit the room, and what it costs. If we cannot help,we will say so straight away rather than leaving you hanging while you could beringing someone else.
What short notice does and doesn’t change
What doesn’t change: the kit, theattendant, the print quality, the number of hours you get. A booking made threeweeks out gets exactly the same setup as one made eighteen months out. We arenot going to send you a lesser version because you booked late.
What does change: your choice narrows. If two of our three units are already out on your date, you get the one that isfree rather than the one you might have picked. Usually that is fine — for mostvenues more than one unit works well — but it is worth knowing.
Print overlay turnaround. We design acustom overlay with your names and date. At short notice this needs turninground quickly, so we will need your details and any approval fast. It is aday’s work, not a month’s, but it does need you to reply to emails.
Venue paperwork. Your venue will want tosee public liability insurance and PAT certificates. We can send those over thesame day, but build in a couple of days for your venue to process them — thatis the step most likely to hold up a late booking, and it is on their siderather than ours.
Access. This is the one thing wegenuinely cannot fix at the last minute. If your venue’s evening reception isup two flights of stairs with no lift, that rules some options out entirely.Tell us early in the conversation rather than late, and we will steer you tosomething that will actually get into the room.
If you’refilling a gap in the evening
A lot of last-minute calls are not really about photo booths. Theyare about a couple who has looked at the running order and realised there is along stretch after the first dance where nothing is planned.
If that is you, a few things worth knowing before you book anything:
The gap is usually smaller than it feels. Once the band or DJ is going properly, an hour of it takes care ofitself.
Where the booth goes matters as much as whether you have one. In the main room, visible from the dance floor. A booth in a sideroom does not fill a gap.
Open it late, not early. The busiesthour of any photo booth is the last one before the venue’s curfew. If you arebooking three hours at short notice, put them at the end of the night ratherthan the start.
Just ask
There is no cost and no obligation infinding out. Tell us your date and venue and we will tell you honestly what wehave — including when the answer is that we cannot help, in which case we willsay it quickly so you can try someone else.
Call 0330 223 7975, email hello@snappyshotevents.co.uk,or send the details through the enquiry form. We cover Sussex, Surrey, Brightonand London.
