The day after they became engaged at home last September, Eliza Hodgson and Stephen Wright decided to go out for drinks in Vancouver, British Columbia, to celebrate.
The pair, photographers who own a photo and video production agency, thought it would be fun to capture the occasion with images from a vintage photo booth at Slice of Life, an art gallery.
“The photo booth for us is just such a candid and casual way to capture a special moment,” Mr. Wright, 38, said, adding that neither of them wanted formal engagement photos. “It’s very authentic. It’s very true to us.”
“And it’s seven dollars a photo strip,” Ms. Hodgson, 27, added.
The engagement photo shoot has become a rite of passage for many affianced couples. The images, costing $200 to $2,000 on average, are often used for wedding announcements and invitations. (Many photographers, though, include them in wedding packages, according to Zola.com.)
But more couples are skipping traditional engagement shoots in favor of the photo booth — something more spontaneous that can cost just a few dollars, requires no photographer and evokes a sense of nostalgia.
There are far fewer booths these days. During their heyday, from the 1950s through the 1970s, they were common in five-and-dime stores, bus stations and amusement parks, according to photobooth.net. But lately they have been making a comeback in big cities like New York.
Instagram and TikTok have been flooded with engagement announcements using candid images from photo booths. Newly engaged pairs are visiting vintage booths and then using the black-and-white and color strips as the centerpiece of their announcements.
Emily Botelho, the operations manager at Autophoto, a photo-booth gallery and museum on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, said she had seen many couples using the booth since the museum opened in October.
“We have had several spontaneous proposals at our N.Y.C. flagship, along with people intentionally hiring out the space for private proposals with friends and family present,” Ms. Botelho said in an email.
As modern digital and technological trends continue to influence weddings — content creators for hire, generative A.I. for budgeting — couples are taking a pass on the logistical, financial and social media pressures of planning engagement shoots, reserving that energy instead for the wedding.
After her engagement in May, Angel Jefferson, a television writer in Los Angeles, said she and her now husband, Garrett Jefferson, 34, weren’t sure how they would announce the news. But Ms. Jefferson had become inspired by people online who had gone to vintage photo booths for other occasions, she said.
“We’re just both super-casual people,” Ms. Jefferson, 33, said. “We barely had a photographer at our wedding.”
On their first date, in December 2024, they met at a bar that had a standing photo booth and took pictures there. After their engagement, they agreed to do the same in a standing photo booth at a coffee shop to bring the experience full circle. The images were $10 for a four-inch grid, and they did three takes.
The photos weren’t used just to announce their engagement on social media, but also for invitations to their wedding in November and for their wedding website. “We got our good use out of that $30,” Ms. Jefferson said, “especially when you start to think about wedding budgets and numbers. This is the first stop on that train. Let’s not blow our load on the first stop here.”
When Winston Jones, an operations specialist in marketing and a fashion content creator in New York City, was planning to propose to Keyla Navarro, a marketing strategist and photographer, he knew that they wouldn’t have a traditional engagement shoot.
A self-described “artsy couple,” they already had captured dozens of memories on film during their six-year relationship, so Mr. Jones wanted to incorporate them into the proposal.
“My real concern was Keyla’s picky about photography, so since she couldn’t shoot it herself, I was like, oh, God, I don’t have enough of the vetting skills to know if they’re a good fit,” he said.
While on a trip for his birthday in Lisbon in October, Mr. Jones, 28, convinced Ms. Navarro, 29, to stop by a speakeasy for a nightcap before heading back to their hotel. The bar had a photo booth, and the pair eventually squeezed their way inside. That’s where he positioned his phone to record the entire proposal.
“And then he pulls out the ring and is like, Will you marry me?” she said. “I was genuinely very, very surprised.”
After she said yes, they took what would end up being the photos that they used to tell friends, family and followers on social media about their nuptials, planned for October 2027.
“Something we talk about a lot is never giving extravagant portrayals that don’t feel real,” Ms. Navarro said. “I think a lot of couples feel the same way, where they’re constantly fed these super-high-production shoots, and it feels out of reach.”