Wedding Day "Props" to Consider

Your wedding day photos are something that you can look back on for years to come. Your guests will often share their pictures taken together and cherish them. So it is a great idea to have a range of themed props that your photographer and guests can have fun with.

Here are some great props to consider for your wedding photography to give your photographer something fun to work with - and your guests something fun to play with.

Flower Wall

Flower walls are beautiful and can be the perfect backdrop to have hundreds of photos taken randomly by guests that also still have cohesiveness and look great in an album together. Both selfies and professional photos look stunning with these backdrops. You can have the colors designed to match your theme. Depending on your budget, you can splash out on fresh flowers (always my vote when it isn't my money being spent, ha) that your guests can take home at the end of the party (just be sure to leave a sign somewhere so they know they are supposed to take them home) or hire a faux wall.

Photo Booth Props

These are very popular because there are so many prop options that guests can find one that matches their personality. Giant glasses, fake mustaches, and even feather boas are great. They give dimension and a fun element to the photographs, too. If you've got the time to do so vintage stores and second hand shops are full of fun hats and fun eye wear and costume jewelry. The Target $1 Spot almost always has SOMETHING you can use as props. The goal is to collect as many as you can, but that doesn't have to be expensive.

Heart-shaped colored glasses, sparkly headbands and large ties are popular options for photo booth props.

Most Photo Booth companies arrive with props in hand - which takes some of the stress out of it. If having your photographer bring someone specifically for the photo booth is out of the question and you don't have it in your budget for a photo booth company you can create a hashtag for all of your guests to use for their photo booth selfies, ensuring you can access them all later.

Games

If you aren’t having a casino themed wedding, there are still many games that you can play at your wedding. Ring tosses, giant Jenga, and custom regulation cornhole boards can fill your wedding reception with fun.

It is also great to help children burn off some energy and have fun too without being underfoot. Depending on your wedding’s theme and style, interactive play mats like art or giant piano mats are great fun for the kids (and grown ups).

An arts and crafts table with custom word searches and coloring sheets is always an easy, but personalized, option for the kids.

Wedding Quilts

One of my favorite things I've seen is having each quest sign a quilting square. It was such a unique and fun way to incorporate all of the guests.

Balloons and Balloon Letters

You can have the whole alphabet or decide on a couple of words that sum up your wedding. Often the couple getting married choose to have their names or initials, but you can buck the trend. Have Love, Happiness, Joy and other uplifting words in giant foil balloons.

I'm personally a fan of big bundles of balloons that match the wedding colors and think they make a fun, colorful addition to photos.

Marquee Lights

These are big, bold and beautiful. You will often find that these spell out LOVE, and there might not be a better prop for a wedding than that. You can have your marquee lights custom made, but you might need to figure out how to store them afterwards. My vote? In your home office, game room, or over your bed if you've got the space and it makes sense to hang it there.

If you don't get them too customized (no wedding dates) you can always sell them after or rent them out to friends who want to use them.

Photo Frames & Guest Books

Personalized giant photo frames full of signatures from your guests not only look great on social media platforms, like Instagram, but they are great printed, framed, and hung among your other wedding photographs too. You can have the photo frame personalized with the date and time of your wedding and yours and your partner's names too.

They can be painted and embellished with colors, patterns and/or designs so that they not only match your wedding but your interior design aesthetic also. It's a good idea to start planning where it'll hang one day and adjust the size/customization accordingly.

Guest books are a great option if you don't want to hang it on your walls.

Wedding Exit Items

Ribbons, balloons, light sabers, glow sticks, lavender seeds, dried flower petals, sparklers... the options for wedding day exits are endless and your photographer can help you decide which works best for photos at the time of day you decide to do it.

I've seen bubbles and confetti thrown as the couple walks back down the aisle.

Bubbles are also a fun way to make the first dance something other guests are involved in also (a lot of couples find it awkward for everyone to just be staring at them alone on the dance floor).

Smoke bombs are entertaining for guests to watch (from a safe distance) and usually need a few volunteers to set off.

Keep in mind that venues have rules about things like confetti (you all know this girl loves a good confetti photo when it's allowed and easy to clean up), sparklers, and glitter. So be sure to chat with your venue about those things ahead of time!

Also, don't feel like you need to wait until dark to do things like sparklers or firework exits (though they are magical). For many summer weddings night fall is so late in the day most guests have trickled out before it's time to leave, so doing a mock exit while it's still light and most guests are there is a fun alternative (and makes for some magical daytime photos, too).

Weddings can be (and SHOULD be) a lot of fun - up to the very last moments.

It is, after all, a day for celebrating love, family and friendship. Using props for your wedding photography is a great idea not just for fun photos but because guests will enjoy the opportunity to let loose for a while and create some memories/photographs of their own, too.

[Disclaimer - some content within this blog post was in part a collaboration with a blogging company who compensated me monetarily for including links and some content/ideas and some links included are for companies/clients they represent while others are local companies I felt were good examples of things the blog post content discussed.

All photographs provided are mine.]