DIY photo booth with laptop?

I looked into this a couple of years ago for a NYE party and it seemed like way too much hassle. Any software worth using was expensive, and if I wanted them to be printed out I had to buy the paper (expensive)

And I didn't want people fucking with my laptop.

Not worth.

Ya I wouldnt be leaving my laptop sitting out for drunk people to mess around with. Who would collect it at the end of the night? Too much to worry about

I've read of people doing it with a camera on a stand.

That seems like a hassle. Even if you would were to use your built in camera on your laptop.. you would have bring a printer.

You can do a point and shoot camera with a remote shutter. But even then... Seems risky in terms of someone losing the remote or stealing your camera. And then still you would have to add a printer. Not worth it.

Had a friend do this at their daughters wedding. They thought it would go smoothly and wouldn't need to be manned for the wedding, but someone had to man it the entire time. So depends on if you have extra people that you only invited for presents and are willing to have them work your wedding instead of just enjoy it.

We're doing a diy booth, but I agree, it could be a lot of hassle if you don't know what you're doing. if you own a dslr, or a point and shoot and a tripod, remote triggers are as low as 10$ on amazon and b&hphoto. I have a softbox and stand that we're setting up but i'd imagine the camera flash could possibly substitute. i've also seen tutorials of people using ipads but..eh. I personally don't think that's a great idea.

we have a smallish wedding planned so i'm not worried about the people but i agree, depending on the guests, you might want someone manning the booth.

if you want guests to have access to the pictures, you could download a trial of adobe lightroom for the wedding and tether to your laptop. if you stick them in a specific folder, you can have them uploaded to a cloud service automatically or something.

ETA: if you have a photography school in your area, try asking the faculty to see if there's a student who would be interested in doing the booth. when i was still in photo school, we got a lot of our first jobs that way. I WOULD NOT recommend you going this route for your actual photographer...too risky, but the photo booth? meh.