How much film do you need for a wedding?

The method

1. 1.Divide your guest count by two. Most photographs are of couples or small groups, not individuals, so a one-per-guest estimate roughly doubles what you need.
2. 2.Add 20%. For double exposures, photographs of the floor, and the three attempts at the same group.
3. 3.Round up to whole packs. You cannot buy seven exposures.
4. 4.Add one more pack than the answer. Running out is a much worse outcome than having a spare pack.

The table, by guest count

The pack arithmetic, if you are using Polaroid

This is where the numbers change character. Polaroid i-Type packs hold eight photographs, not twenty, and the film costs about $2.37 a shot rather than $1.10.

Note the last row: at 120 shots, three five-packs (120 photographs for $254.97) beats fifteen single packs. Polaroid's five-pack works out at about $2.13 a shot against $2.37, which is the only official discount available and worth taking at event quantities.

Why 20% spare and not 10%

Because the camera will be used by people who have never held one. In practice, at an event, you will lose frames to:

• •Distance mistakes. Guests stand too close — inside the 0.3 m minimum on a mini, or the 0.9 m minimum on a WIDE 400 — and the photograph is soft.
• •Flash range. Someone photographs the dance floor from six meters away. On a camera with no manual exposure, that frame is dark and gone.
• •Double exposures. Often a mode someone found by accident.
• •Three attempts at the same group, because the first two had somebody blinking.
• •Photographs of the ceiling, the floor, and a thumb. Reliably, at least one of each.

None of that is avoidable with a camera handed to strangers, and the instruction card only reduces it. Twenty percent is the realistic allowance.

Two things that change the number

A printer alongside the camera reduces film use

If guests can print the photographs from their own phones, they take fewer with the borrowed camera — and those printer prints cost about 42 cents (Kodak 4PASS) or $1.10 (instax WIDE from a Link WIDE 2) rather than being wasted frames.

In practice a camera plus a printer at a 100-guest wedding tends to need slightly less camera film than a camera alone, and produces more prints overall. The Link WIDE 2 shares the same film as a WIDE 400, so it is one film order; a Kodak Mini 2 Retro is a separate media but much cheaper per print.

A second camera increases it

Two cameras at a large wedding will get through more film than one, because one camera creates a queue that people give up on. That is the point — the film you budgeted gets used instead of sitting in the pack. Above about 100 guests, plan two bodies and the full film allowance.

Batteries, which are part of the quantity question

Two notes from that table. The SQ40's CR2 cells last an extremely long time but are not sold in supermarkets, so buy the spare pair in advance. And the Kodak printer's 20 prints per charge is the one genuine constraint in this list — if it is doing event volume, it needs a power bank.

1. The camera this arithmetic is for

Fujifilm instax WIDE 400

The guest-book format, at $1.10 a shot, with a flash that reaches the room.

Buy it for

Any wedding with a guest book.

Skip it if

A tight film budget.

• •3.9 x 2.4 inch print with room for a written message.
• •Flash to 3 m, against 2.2 m on the minis.
• •About 100 exposures per set of four AA batteries.

Running cost: instax WIDE works out at $1.10 a shot. See every format’s cost.

How it scores8.9/10 overall

• Guest-book suitability10
• Flash reach10
• Running cost7

Our editorial scoring, built from published specifications and reviews by outlets that test hardware — see how we pick. We have not handled these products, so these are not test results.

Engadget, which publishes hands-on reviews, calls it “simple operation”.

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2. The cheaper way to cover volume

Fujifilm instax mini 13

85 cents a shot, so a second camera and more film costs less than you expect.

Buy it for

Large weddings, as the second body.

Skip it if

A book where guests write beside the print.

• •**85 cents a shot** against $1.10 — on 120 shots that is $30 saved.
• •A self-timer, so a group can photograph itself.
• •Film in supermarkets, so a last-minute top-up is actually possible.

Running cost: instax mini works out at $0.85 a shot. See every format’s cost.

How it scores7.9/10 overall

• Running cost9
• Availability10
• Guest-book suitability6

Our editorial scoring, built from published specifications and reviews by outlets that test hardware — see how we pick. We have not handled these products, so these are not test results.

Check price on Amazon→

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Read the full review