Disposables or digital?

Friends have had disposable cameras on tables, and one had a mini Polaroid so you could take a photo and stick it in a book with a message.
I kinda like the old-school disposable idea. Then you don't know what they're going to look like and you can't just delete it and retake it incessantly. Point, click, hope it comes out OK! Haha
Sorry, that wasn't what you were asking.

I have noticed that disposable cameras are really expensive at the moment as my daughter wanted one for a camp she is going on. They are about 13 quid each! And that’s not including developing. I suppose you would get a discount for buying in bulk but I was surprised! We are having a photo booth but I know these aren’t cheap. You could set up a photo upload site and ask people to upload their digital phone pictures on there. I’ve had that at a wedding I went to a few years ago so it must still be a thing!

View quoted message I saw the like Instax and Polaroids, I love the idea of making a guest frame with the photos 😍

View quoted message I couldn't believe the price of them! I guess they must be considered retro now 🤣 x

My advice is to save your money and not bother with the disposables. When developed you may get a handful out of 100 that are any use. The rest are likely to be too dark, out of focus or too light.

They have a fixed focus for medium to long distance so anything too close will be out of focus. They are no good in low light = being indoors which is the very place they are usually found put out on the tables and the flash is not powerful enough to reach very far - even if people read the instructions on how to get the flash working in the first place. And if used too close with the flash it will burn out details.

Mostly I see the kids wandering around with them as the adults don't bother much, and why would they as they have got a very capable camera on their phone.

The Polaroids are a better option as people can write something on the white area, but not a cheap option either.

I would ditch the disposables. Even before everyone had cameras on their phones, they still were't good value for money. I had a friend who paid over £100 for disposables plus developing (this was nearly 20 years ago) and she only had about 5 pictures that weren't so blurry or blacked out that they were pointless. So she ended up paying £20 each for really poor pictures and binning the rest!

Most people now have a reasonable camera on their phone so I would just set up some way of guests being able to share pictures with you and let them get on with it.