Disposable Cameras = Disposable Pictures
Many times when a bride starts to think about her wedding photography, she considers placing a bunch of single use cameras on the tables at the reception. Most internet wedding sites promote this as a great way to get those extra photos of candid moments of friends and family. This sounds like a pretty good idea at first glance. Unfortunately, this is rarely how it turns out.
Expect the unexpected
What usually ends up happening is you get a huge stack of useless, expensive pictures. Unless your reception is going to be held outside, most of the pictures will end up being underexposed. Why? Because your guests won't realize that those little cameras have a flash. If you're serving alchohol at your reception, you'll no doubt get some very unexpected results! After dinner what usually happens is the kids get ahold of the cameras and they run around snapping pictures playing "photographer." Because they're only three feet tall, the pictures are mostly of guest's belts and their heads are cut off.
No bargains here
Most of these things happened to us at our own wedding. This is a rather expensive experience as well. The cameras are about $8 a piece, so you could easily spend a couple hundred dollars on them. This doesn't include the processing of them which will run you another couple hundred dollars. Because they're film, you need to have all of them developed. For us, we got about 10 pictures that were salvagable.
The solution
This is almost a no-brainer. Spend this part of your photography budget on a professional! What would you rather have, a pile of questionable pictures or a stunning, professional portrait to hang in your living room? They probably cost about the same. Besides, so many people show up to weddings these days with their own digital cameras anyways. And because they'll be willing to share their pictures with you, you'll get all those photos you wanted in the first place. The best part is, it'll be free!