wedding expo = free samples

My friend Cory runs a business called Philly Penny Press. It's amazing - you can rent one of those penny squishing machines you see at the Zoo or the Liberty Bell or that one truck stop in South Carolina where you can get one that says "never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you" (no, seriously, I got one that said that...). Philly Penny Press let's you pick from different image sets to be printed on the pennies, and you can decorate the actual machine however you want. Pennies are provided for your guests, who don't need any quarters to operate the machine. It's like the epitome of nostalgia.

Shortly after I got engaged, Cory was vending at a wedding expo called Lovesick, which features all kinds of unique and local caterers, photographers, interesting attractions like the Penny Press, and more. This expo is national, so you can find one near you and go. I highly recommend it - you find all sorts of unexpected options for your wedding, there are all kinds of giveaways, food and music, and tickets are way cheap (I was fortunate enough to be put on Cory's guest list, so David and I got in for free - a common theme which greatly helped make our wedding as affordable as it was).

A lot of the vendors you meet at the expo will offer you a special deal. We loved the idea of having a photo booth at our wedding, and there were two companies there that let us sample their booths and take home a photo strip.

The one we ended up going with was called Go Festive. After a tiny bit of negotiation (and don't be afraid to ask for lower prices on basically everything), they were able to offer us a crazy deal (more than 50% off the normal rate).

The great thing about the photo booth is that it knocks out both your favor (your guests get copies of their photos, and they put a little logo for you on the bottom with your names and wedding date) and your guest book (another copy prints out that they place in a scrap book and write a note next to, pretty much the most adorable and sometimes hilarious guest book ever). They bring props for people to use in their photos (sunglasses, bunny ears, and of course a hat with a giant hotdog on it). We also bought some big cardboard frames so people could hold them up in their photos, which ended up being super cute.

Afterwards you get access to every single set of photos online and they send them to you on a CD. They are so fun, and we got so many comments and compliments on what a great addition it was to our wedding. The photo booth gives you a lot of bang for your buck, and Go Festive was amazing to work with and crazy affordable.

Janine, me, and Lori - photo booth fun with old friends!