The Proper Booth: Changing the Game and Making Memories That Will Last in the Digital Age
Photobooths: you’ve posed for one, you’ve posed for them all, right?
At least that was my initial prejudice when I met up with Charlotte (she would prefer you call her Charlie—everyone who knows her does!) to discuss her business, The Proper Booth. Though I was excited to meet Charlie, I was sure I understood her business; instead, I spent an hour learning more about the future of the photobooth experience and the unique origins of The Proper Booth, a British company begun in the Caribbean! It’s The Proper Booth’s first appearance at A Most Curious Wedding Fair, but according to Charlie, they’re finally ready to see and be seen: “It was always something on our vision board, but you can’t commit to something like Most Curious before knowing 100% who you are and who you want to work with.” After some deep soul-searching mid-pandemic, Charlie knows exactly what The Proper Booth is and what the team is in the room to do: change the game.
The Proper Booth, now based in Somerset, but willing to travel to your wedding, was begun in part due to a lack of competition in the Caribbean where Charlie and her husband lived during the early years of their marriage. He’s a yacht-chef who worked out of the islands so frequently they realized it was time to have an adventure and relocate to Antigua! They were meant to be there only a few years, which turned into seven. Having gotten married and with their family expanding, they realized that children need more than a beach to thrive. They returned to the UK in 2018 and The Proper Booth was born. “The aim was to disrupt the Photo Booth market. Having worked in the states for so long I knew [the UK was] about five years behind.”
The other half of the story is that Charlie reflected on her own lackluster wedding day and realized that her adventurous and spontaneous spirit didn’t translate into her wedding experience. The bad quality of her own wedding photos has inspired her to produce quality prints for her clients. “Those are some of the last photos I have of those people. It’s the one thing that you can take away from the wedding that will last—photos—they should be of a quality that reflects you and them,” Charlie says. She’s right—photography, videography, live painting—anything that leaves a lasting impression of your day and the people who attended, are reflections of the relationship you shared at that time. And yet, I never imagined the primary focus of a photobooth owner and operator would be the content it produced—that seems standard—I thought we would be talking about the booth itself, the props, etc. and we do, but not necessarily in the ways I initially imagined.
“There was never a feather boa or a viking hat in sight—everything was bespoke and handmade,” Charlie informs me of the Proper Booth props. She didn’t want her booth to be an obstruction at a wedding, full of the same-old-same-old; it’s in the name, it’s a proper booth, not necessarily in the British way, “propa,” but named to reflect the standard Charlie admires. “It was about doing what I thought people should have been doing,” she shares, steadfast in her beliefs and committed to seeing them through—she holds herself to the exact same standards she wishes were the norm. “I’ve always been one of those people who wants to show photo booths aren’t what people think they are; you don’t have to have the standard photobooth.” But you do have to have standards! And Charlie tells me about the work that goes into making sure those standards are rigorously met. “Things go wrong,” Charlie says, matter-of-fact. “[Equipment] needs to be tested. Other people may not put the love and attention in.” At one point in our conversation she reaches below the camera and produces a handful of sample photos. These are the test shots she’s done before an upcoming event, the handful representing a much larger effort of providing an intentional service.
As she combs through her office, looking for some of her bespoke props to show me, she realizes that there aren’t any readily available—they’ve all been claimed by the couples and guests she made them for. “Some people frame them,” she tells me with an appropriately large smile. The props are really important to her. We touch on the racism they can often represent, “It’s really problematic to me—being in the Caribbean for seven years you understand a culture and then you come over and see a prop box full of dreadlocks and you want people to step off,” she says.
“It’s not just about the racist element, but it’s also about the weddings—bride, wifey, Mr. and Mrs.—that doesn’t sit with me. Like why? I get really passionate,” she says, but I assure her that she shouldn’t shy away from these valuable and valid points. I hadn’t really realized just how much a photobooth can reinforce a narrow view of the couple and their guests. Charlie finds that the reason is very simple: photo booths are all too often owned by people of a certain demographic who’ve never had to question the status-quo in order to book enough weddings. Charlie’s team represents a far more diverse dynamic and she looks forward to people connecting to her team at the Most Curious Wedding Fair in March. “We’re all personable—Simon [my business partner] and I can talk for hours and hours and hours, but we want to hear from people and spark creativity.”
“I’ve been having more interesting conversations with couples—a lot more brainstorming sessions; everything is a lot more purposeful. We were always going down the bespoke route—every wedding and couple is different—why have the same photobooth experience as everyone else when you’re not like everyone else? It’s been elevated. People haven’t been as scared to ask—it’s all about listening and understanding and that creates the most amazing client relationships—and you can only get that through a small business. There is two of us at the moment—soon to be three—and we have purposefully chosen our photo booths. We will recommend a booth based on who you are,” Charlie tells me.
The pandemic was a low point for her personally; as she shares a bit of how the experience impacted her negatively, she’s also able to see how she’s walked herself out of those dark days and into a more intentional, creative and forward-thinking space, “Part of finding my business has been a personal journey for me.”
One of the biggest changes the pandemic and the weddings-halt provoked was the movement into the digital sphere. Now, The Proper Booth can be accessed by your guests both near and far; in this age of Zoom ceremonies and travel restrictions, this can be an amazing way to get everyone on your guest list involved, even those whose RSVP reflected the limitations the pandemic still imposes on many people’s wedding days. This is also an incredible way to reduce waste: “Photobooths can be problematic—especially if you choose a print booth, but you can have a digital experience. Video-styled booths are becomming huge and that lends itself to being extremely eco-friendly; nothing worse than seeing wasted prints on the floor.” I ask more about this trend towards video-booths and Charlie lights up. This is an extreme passion of hers: “I love video—you can do anything—slo-mo, a prism, a glitch booth,” she lists the possibilities, which seem endless in her eyes. “A new project we’re hoping to bring to Most Curious is lenticular printing,”—she holds up a photo that moves with the twist of her wrist—“you take a gif and [by] lacing two photos together, you have a moving photo. We are doing our first lenticular event at [redacted] later this week,” she tells me with a wink in her eye. That redacted bit? It’s pretty cool and I’m so excited for The Proper Booth that they’re getting a stage on which to work that’s as forward-thinking and cool as they are.
Speaking of setting scenes, it’s really important that The Proper Booth be an integrated aspect of your wedding. Charlie shudders at the thought that despite all the work she does that her team would end up being the “sore thumb” of the layout. She works with her couples to make sure that doesn’t happen: “We’re not just interested in what they want to do with their photobooth, but [with] their whole day.” Through sharing Pinterest boards, replying to questionaries, DM-ing saved Instagram likes, etc. Charlie and the team are able to cultivate a photobooth experience that fits like a missing puzzle piece to your wedding day. Even your event attendant will blend in with your crowd. Forget branded T-shirts! If your even is black tie the person running your Proper Booth photo experience will be dressed to the nines!
“I empathize with people who go to their own wedding and don’t see themselves,” Charlie tells me as we wind down. Photobooths can be a kind of heartless, or at least semi-soulless endeavor, part of a hive-mind that adheres to trends and whims, or else gets stuck in the past. “Photo booths seem like the kind of thing that’s at the bottom of the rung, but that take-away is the thing that will last,” she says, ruminating on her own wedding over a decade previous. “You will have your wedding photos, but regardless of what style you won’t necessarily get everyone’s personalities—we’re the after-party photographer, we scoop in and capture that feeling of celebration when people are letting their hair down.” If it was between investing in a photobooth like The Proper Booth, or providing a wedding favor to each individual guest, Charlie knows where she’d put her money. She’s already invested in creating a unique, modern, personalizable service on behalf of the bride she once was, whose photos didn’t represent the wedding she wished she’d had. She’d go photobooth every time.