The Directory Gigi's Journal Expert interview

From the grandma to the best man: why every generation ends up in the photo booth

Jen Yules of Viva La Booth on what to compare between suppliers, when to book, where the booth should go, and how to make sure every guest, grandparents included, ends up in the frame.

Claudia Judd October 16, 2026 11 Min Read

Jen Yules has been in the business for nearly ten years. She has a meticulous eye for detail, she loves party planning and fancy dress, and she never wanted to compromise on luxury and style. So when she looked at the photo booths at weddings, she kept seeing the same thing: a plastic photo booth that looked like it belonged to a different event.

"The tech was always good on the photo booths, but the details you planned so hard for your wedding were missing," she says. "Your font should match your stationery. Your backdrops should match your colour palette. Your props should be on trend. It wasn't cohesive with the wedding."

She brought the first oak, retro, mid century style booth to the UK, and Viva La Booth began. Last year the team worked around 300 events, mostly across Yorkshire and Manchester, and Jen still replies to every enquiry herself. More often than not she already knows your venue, and exactly where the booth stood last time.

"I'm going to pick up the phone if you call, or answer your WhatsApp. I want to hear what your styling is, what your vision is, and I want the photo booth to feel seamless and part of that," she says.

This season, there's something new too: Viva La Revival, a retro enclosed booth, built in oak to match the rest of the collection and already one of the most requested options on the books.

We asked her everything a Bride wants to know before booking.

From the grandma to the best man: why every generation ends up in the photo booth

How to choose your photo booth supplier

This is the advice Jen feels most strongly about. "People will compare equipment to equipment, and actually I think what you need to be comparing is service, reviews, experience."

Her reasoning is simple. Anyone can buy an iPad and a light and call it a photo booth. Turning up and delivering on a Saturday night in peak season is a different matter. Viva La Booth regularly gets calls from couples whose booth hasn't arrived on the night, usually because a smaller company didn't have the resources to cover a problem. With eight booths and a trusted bank of staff, Jen always has a backup.

When you're comparing, look for:

An established company that only does photo booths, with strong reviews from real couples
Their response rate. How engaged are they? How interactive are they? Passionate? That's the same service you're going to get on the evening
The quality of the images they produce. If that matters to you, ask whether they use DSLR cameras rather than an iPad
A backup plan if the equipment or a member of staff lets them down
Experience of weddings your size. Managing a queue for 150 guests is a very different job to managing one for 50

When to book

Viva La Booth is already taking bookings for 2028, and key Saturdays in the busy months go first.

"If you know you want a photo booth and you've decided on your venue and your date, don't hesitate to pay the deposit and get it booked in," says Jen. Personalising all the elements takes a little time, so booking early gives you the most choice.

Short notice isn't a closed door, though. If you find yourself with some budget left over closer to the day, get in touch. "We've got lots of short notice availability," she says.

Which booth, and where to spend your budget

Each Viva La Booth booth has its own features. They all print instantly, some have personalised welcome screens, and some send images straight to guests' phones.

If you're deciding where to put your money, Jen's pick is the Icon booth, their most popular. Guests get their pictures sent straight to their phones, the screens are personalised to you, and guests can switch between colour and black and white themselves.

She's also a firm believer that a booth earns its place in the budget. "You get guest entertainment. It's a party starter. It's a talking point in the room. You get printed pictures which are personalised, you get a guest book, and all the guests get something to take home," she says. "I think the value for that is unrivalled. If you really want to be leading the trend this season, though, you need to book the enclosed booth."

New for this season: Viva La Revival, the retro enclosed booth

Viva La Booth's newest booth is a step back in time. Where the rest of the collection is open air, this one is enclosed: you step inside, pull the curtain across, take your pictures and walk out with a strip in your hand, just like the high street photo booths so many of us remember.

It's built in oak, so it sits alongside the rest of the collection and keeps the same mid century look, and like every booth it can be personalised to your wedding. "It certainly won't take away from the aesthetic," says Jen. "And it looks as good in reality as it does on the promo."

Couples have already noticed. "The enclosed booth has gone down a storm," she says. "Back to the old retro pull the curtain and get the strips, which is certainly of the moment." The team has taken a number of bookings for it since it arrived this summer, so if it's the one you want, it's worth enquiring early.

Making it match the rest of your wedding

If you've spent months on a moodboard, a booth that clashes with everything else will stand out for the wrong reasons. Jen treats it like any other part of the styling.

"That intent comes from the initial conversations and all those ideas and moodboards that you've got," she says. There are more than 50 stretch, seam free studio backdrops to choose from, so there's one to suit almost any colour palette. Every print is designed with your wedding details on it, using your font or monogram, and there are over 20 welcome screens that can be personalised for you. "It looks like it's all yours," she says.

The one thing she'd steer you away from is the glitter or sequin wall. "It might be controversial," she laughs. "In essence it looks great, but it doesn't photograph well, it falls apart, and it isn't, in my opinion, the best backdrop to get a fantastic picture." A studio backdrop looks good in the room and gives you an image "as if you were in a studio."

Where to put it, and when to switch it on

Position makes a huge difference to how much your booth gets used. "You want the photo booth within the room that the party's in, or within a thoroughfare off the main party room," says Jen. "You don't want it in a separate room somewhere."

Setup takes around 20 minutes and, in her words, is "well practised but unobtrusive", so it won't interrupt your evening.

Start earlier than you think. "If you've got an evening reception, I'd say start at seven." That gives guests time for some nicer portraits before the evening turns into the fun, in the moment shots.

Her sweet spot is three hours, so seven until ten, or half seven until half ten. However big your guest list, that means everyone gets at least one turn. Any later and you'd probably rather your guests were dancing. "I always say nothing good happens in the photo booth after half 10," she jokes.

What the booth attendant actually does

Jen's attendants know exactly what makes a great picture, and it shows on the night. They set the booth up in the right spot, get the lighting and focus right (guests regularly comment on the lighting, she says), hand out props, get everyone in the frame and looking the right way, and make sure the same person isn't in every single shot.

They're also the answer to the guest who swears they won't go near it. Most of the booths are open air, so the reluctant ones can watch first, and the attendants will work the room and ask the DJ to give the booth a shout. Jen's own advice to guests is to "go grab a friend and bring them back." In her experience, the most reluctant ones often end up loving it most.

It's also why a booth works alongside your photographer rather than instead of them. "We usually come when the photographer's going home, so it covers a different part of the evening," she says. "You'll get the best man and the grandma. You'll get pictures that you just wouldn't have captured otherwise."

The guest book everyone actually signs

Guests take one print home, and the attendant sticks a second copy into a guest book and asks each guest to write a message beside it.

"If you have a guest book that's not with the photo booth, it just gets left in the corner," says Jen. Speaking as a recent Bride myself, I can vouch for that: ours sat out for three days and collected around five signatures.

With the attendant looking after it all evening, the book fills up as the party goes on. At the end of the night it's handed over boxed, in a personalised gift bag, and it's the detail Jen's couples mention most in their reviews.

Make sure you get in the pictures too

Wedding days move quickly, and it's easy to spend the whole evening making sure everyone else is having fun. Jen won't let that happen.

"They've ultimately booked us for all their guests to have fun, but we want them to have fun too," she says. "We always make sure we grab them and make sure they get a picture."

That picture goes on the front of the guest book, with everyone who celebrated with you on the pages behind it.

What Brides are asking for this year

"This year for certain is black and white," says Jen. "No props is a big request."

Coming through fast for the end of this year and next is the retro strip: four pictures in a row with a darker grain, "throwing it back to the old Topshop style photo booth that you went in." It's the natural partner to Viva La Revival, and the strips come with the Icon booth too.

And yes, props can still be chic

"There's a real mix this year," she says. "Some people are going no props altogether and just letting people make their own fun in the booth, which certainly looks great. I would still say the most fun is had with props."

Jen grew up doing fancy dress, and sourcing props is clearly the part of the job she loves. On a recent trip to New York she spent her time in the city's fancy dress shops, and she's just added a new set of fans from Ibiza to the collection. "We don't have any blow ups or wigs or feather boas," she says. "Just ones that I know are going to look great on the pictures."

She'll make props to order too. Sports themes come up a lot, from horse riding to one wedding that wanted props for their hockey team. "Padel, Disney, Harry Potter, we've done all the themes," she says. Some props take on a life of their own: a pair of giant bear heads once went missing on a guest led tour of the local town, with pictures sent back to Jen as proof. Even the latex duck mask has its fans. "You either love it or you definitely don't want the duck," she says.

Her favourite part of every wedding

Ask Jen what she loves most about the job and it isn't a backdrop or a booth. It's the people, specifically the grandparents.

"It's seeing the grandmas and granddads in the booth, putting on the props, having a great time. The different generations together having such fun," she says. "I could put an Instagram post up every day of the grandmas in the photo booth."

She doesn't see that changing, whatever the trends do next. "I think a picture in your hand is becoming an essential part of a wedding. Analogue is growing, not fading."

So what's the most underrated moment of a wedding, the one nobody talks about but Jen always notices? "When the generations come together. Grandparents, parents, friends and kids all squeezing into the booth for the same photo. We see it at every wedding, and those little prints often become the ones that mean the most."

Love the sound of Viva La Revival? Discover Viva La Booth on The Directory, and explore more of our hand picked suppliers on The Directory.