Hiring vs Buying an Instant Camera for Your Wedding
If you’re planning an instant camera guestbook, buying a camera can look like the obvious move. You own it, you can keep it, and in theory you’ll use it again afterwards. Lovely. Very wholesome. In practice, the bit that catches people out usually isn’t the camera - it’s the film.
A new Instax Mini 41 is currently £94.99 to buy in the UK, and a twin pack of 20 Instax Mini shots is £14.99. That means 100 shots comes to £169.94 once you include the camera, and 200 shots comes to £244.89 - before you’ve bought a guestbook, pens or anything else to make the station actually work. At roughly 75p per photo, the running cost adds up faster than most couples expect. And that’s just the Mini version. If you want the classic square prints from the SQ1, it’s £204.94 for 100 shots plus the camera, and £289.89 for 200.
That’s also why the whole “we’ll just keep it and use it loads afterwards” thing is often a bit optimistic. The camera might survive in a drawer quite happily, but the ongoing film cost is what kills the dream. So yes, you can keep using it - if you’re happy to keep paying roughly 75p - 85p every time you press the shutter.
Hiring usually makes more sense if what you actually want is the guestbook, not ownership. At Instant Camera Hire, the hire fee includes tracked delivery, easy printer-free return, spare batteries, a quick guide for your guests, Sharpies, and we’ll even buy back leftover unopened film. That matters because it removes a lot of the annoying bits - especially over-ordering film “just in case” and then being stuck with it afterwards.
Buying can still make sense, to be fair. If you genuinely want an instant camera beyond the wedding and you know you’ll actually use it, go for it. But for most couples, the goal isn’t “own a camera”. It’s “have a fun guestbook experience” without creating yet more wedding admin. In that situation, hiring is usually the cleaner option. You get the experience, significantly reduce your costs, and don’t end up owning a gadget that becomes suspiciously less charming once you remember each click costs money.
If you want the simplest, lowest-faff route to an instant photo guestbook, hire. If you genuinely want the camera for future life as well, buy - but go in with your eyes open, because the real cost is the film, not the camera. And that bit keeps charging rent long after the wedding’s over.
The maths for our most popular hire package (priced as of April ‘26)
1 x Fujifilm Instax SQ1
100 photos
2 spare batteries
One sharpie
A how-to guide
Total to hire: £132.50
Total to buy: £210.44
Savings: £77.94 (plus a bunch of faffing & stress)