Muthablogga

A while ago I wrote an article titled; ‘Dear Wedding Co-ordinators and Party Suppliers‘. In this article I brought to light the fact that there are zero to no places to hire Polaroid camera’s in Cape Town. Unfortunately this situation has not yet changed. Originally I had envisioned a camera at every table and a photo scavenger hunt to add an element of fun. After looking at pricing on the one or two options available at the time though, we decided that it wouldn’t work. I had suggestions from friends to use those cheap disposable camera’s but then heard from several people that they were a complete waste of money as the photos were often somewhat blurry and you had to print them out to find out if any where even worth printing in the first place.  Eventually we opted for a download bar instead. We are setting a friend and a laptop up, so guests can download their pictures before leaving. Digital just makes more sense. I heard of a couple who got 900 extra photos in this manner. Great idea evolution.

I still wanted that Polaroid element though and we decided to incorporate this through our guest book. Instead of the usual photo booth, we are setting up a black board, with a box of fun, quirky accessories, and a photo book with little photo corners so people can frame and stick in their photos after printing. Guests can write their message on the black board, take a quirky picture with their message and stick it in the book. It sounded like a simple enough plan.  Still not as easy a plan to implement as you would think.

In terms of hiring options. In Cape Town it appears to comes down to 1 choice really which I only found through the power of connections. Unfortunately it was quite a road to get there.

Officially, Exposure Gallery (at the Old Biscuit Mill) no longer provides this service. While we had access to one of the old Polaroid camera’s through a friend, film for older camera’s will cost something ridiculous like R 100 per pic! To make matters worse I didn’t want one of those new camera’s that prints out business sized photo’s. I wanted the fabulous wide-format instant photos. I know, I’m fussy right? High maintenance? Yes, perhaps. At least I know what I want though. After heckling with Exposure Gallery, they finally caved and said okay, they will rent me one at a rate of R 250 and I would have to buy 6 packets of film at R 150 each, each packet containing 10 films. I found this pricing a tad outrageous as Orms in town sells the same film for R 120-R 130 per packet and if you are buying  a few packets they will discount this to R 110 per packet.

When I asked  if Exposure Gallery would meet Orms film price I was given a flat-out ‘no’ and very sweetly told that I couldn’t hire the camera if I didn’t buy their film. Fair enough. A little selfish, but it’s your business I suppose. So for an extra few rands, they lost the full sale. Perhaps they buy their film from Orms?

Finally, a referral came through. I hired a wide film Fugifilm Instax camera from a friend of a friend, Cassandra, you can contact her on 079 899 9446. I got the film at the rate I wanted from Orms and our guest book extravaganza is happening.  It’s going to make for a lovely distraction for our guests while they are still sober and we are off having our wedding photos taken during the pre-reception.

Share your wedding tips and tricks below.