If you’ve been following Team Jellybean for a while, you’ll probably know we’re not really a “run of the mill” company. We’ve never been particularly good at doing what everybody else does and, if we’re honest, we don’t really want to. We’d much rather spend our time thinking about how we can make our customers smile than worrying about what everyone else in the industry is up to.
Having said that, after nearly ten years in the photobooth industry, there is one thing we’ve noticed becoming more common, especially around South Yorkshire, and it’s something that’s genuinely made us stop and think. Photobooth companies are beginning to look remarkably similar.
Now before anyone starts panicking, this isn’t aimed at one company, and it certainly isn’t us claiming to have invented photobooths. We actually came into the industry later than many others. There were plenty of brilliant companies long before Jellybean Photobooth existed and there will hopefully be plenty long after us. In fact, we’ve built some fantastic relationships with other wedding suppliers across Yorkshire over the years, and there are loads of businesses we genuinely admire because they’ve built something that’s unmistakably theirs. Competition is healthy. It keeps everybody improving, it gives couples more choice and it stops businesses becoming complacent. We’ve certainly seen plenty of that over the years.
What is a shame though is when originality starts disappearing.
When we started Jellybean back in 2016 we had absolutely no idea what worked. We weren’t handed a guide explaining how to run a successful Photobooth Hire business and we certainly didn’t have another company we wanted to become. Right from day one we wanted to be different, memorable and instantly recognisable. We had a business name people wouldn’t forget, a lot of enthusiasm and a willingness to make mistakes, and looking back now we’ve made hundreds of them.
We’ve invested in equipment that hardly ever got hired, we’ve tried more software than I care to remember, bought cameras that didn’t last, changed printers, tested props from dozens of suppliers and redesigned our print layouts more times than we could possibly count. We’ve rebuilt our online galleries, rewritten emails, redesigned booking confirmations, changed guestbooks, improved animations and even altered the way our attendants interact with guests. Every single one of those changes came from asking ourselves one simple question… does this actually make the experience better?
Not because another company was doing it. Not because it looked good on social media. Not because it was the latest trend. Simply because we genuinely believed it would improve somebody’s experience, including ours. We complete well over 450 events every year and making life easier for our customers is only half the story. We also wanted to make life easier for Team Jellybean behind the scenes. Every workflow we’ve built, every automation we’ve written and every process we’ve refined means less time fighting admin and more time concentrating on what actually matters.
Over the years those tiny little improvements have become what people now recognise as Team Jellybean and, whether people realise it or not, they’ve shaped everything we do. The funny thing is most of those improvements haven’t actually come from Stacey or me. They’ve come from our team. We can’t physically attend every booking, so the people representing Jellybean every weekend are the ones who tell us what guests loved, what could be improved and what tiny little change would make the next event even better. That’s how this business has grown for almost ten years and, in our opinion, that’s probably the biggest difference between building a business through experience and trying to recreate one from the outside.
We’ve always believed that the actual photobooth is only a very small part of what people are booking. Anyone can buy a camera, anyone can buy a printer and anyone can build a nice looking enclosure if they really want to. In fact, there seem to be quite a few people doing exactly that these days… but guests don’t go home talking about the aluminium frame or what model of DSLR was inside the booth. They remember laughing so much that their cheeks hurt. They remember Grandma somehow ending up with an inflatable guitar around her neck. They remember one of the Jellybeaners being completely bat s**t mental and encouraging everybody to squeeze into one last photo. They remember Natasha jumping into a selfie because the bride insisted she was joining in. They remember opening their guestbook a week later and reading handwritten messages from people they might not all see together again for years. That’s what people remember and, more importantly, that’s what they’re actually paying for.
Team Jellybean isn’t just a name printed on a polo shirt. It’s genuinely how we see ourselves and, to be completely honest, we couldn’t run this business without them. Every member of the team brings their own personality to every wedding, birthday party and corporate event. We’ve never wanted attendants who simply stand behind a booth pressing a print button all night. We wanted people who laugh with guests, help children choose props, encourage the quieter people to join in, grab the odd selfie when everyone’s shouting for them to get involved and generally become part of the evening rather than simply observing it. That’s something no piece of equipment can ever replace.
Over the last few years we’ve also made a conscious decision to bring almost everything in house. Every print design is created by us. No Canva templates, no downloaded design packs pretending to be bespoke and no generic AI artwork. Every welcome screen is designed specifically for that customer. Every online gallery is personalised and hosted on our own systems. We’ve invested in our own laser equipment so we now manufacture our own wooden guestbooks instead of buying them from somebody else. We’ve written our own automations because existing software didn’t quite do what we wanted it to, and we’ve built systems that improve our bookings, our communication with venues and our own operations because if something doesn’t exist, we’d rather build it ourselves than wait for somebody else to.
One thing that has genuinely surprised us over the years is just how much of a business people will try to recreate. We’ve smiled when we’ve seen screen animations that felt remarkably familiar, complete with the same fonts and touch effects we’d spent months refining. We’ve spotted gallery layouts that looked more than a little inspired by our own and we’ve even seen wording that felt strangely recognisable, right down to one of our hidden little Jellybean Easter eggs surviving what appeared to be a quick find and replace. That one genuinely made us laugh because it told its own story without us needing to say a word.
The irony is we’ve even had conversations with people who have confidently told us they don’t copy anyone. Fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and we always smile politely because there isn’t much point arguing. Sometimes those conversations have been memorable for completely different reasons and we’ll leave that one there. Everyone takes inspiration from somewhere and that’s completely normal. The difference comes when inspiration quietly turns into imitation. There’s a huge difference between admiring somebody’s work and building something that’s unmistakably your own.
The funny thing is that while somebody is busy trying to work out how we’ve done something, we’re usually already changing it, improving it or moving on to the next idea. That’s simply how Team Jellybean has always worked. We honestly couldn’t tell you what half the industry is doing because we’re too busy looking forwards instead of sideways. There’s always another idea scribbled on a whiteboard, another workflow to improve, another print design to redraw or another slightly ridiculous idea that starts with one of us saying, “This might not work…” Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it turns out to be one of the best things we’ve ever done. Either way, it’s ours.
The wedding industry is full of incredibly talented photographers, florists, DJs, venue stylists and entertainers who have built brilliant businesses simply by being themselves. We admire that because it’s what pushes the industry forwards. If there’s one thing we’d encourage any business owner to do, it’s build something that’s unmistakably yours. Take inspiration from other people because every business owner does that, including us, but don’t lose your own identity along the way. That’s the bit customers remember.
As for Team Jellybean, we’ll carry on doing what we’ve always done. We’ll keep refining, keep investing in our team, keep building our own systems, keep designing everything ourselves and keep trying ideas that probably won’t all work. Every now and again we’ll spot something that feels oddly familiar, have a little chuckle in the office and carry on regardless because, at the end of the day, if somebody is busy recreating what we were doing last year, hopefully it means we’re already busy building what we’ll be doing next year.
Why Couples Across Yorkshire Choose Team Jellybean
If you’re looking for Photobooth Hire in Sheffield, Magic Mirror Hire in South Yorkshire, Wedding Photobooth Hire across Yorkshire or a team that genuinely believes the experience is just as important as the photographs themselves, we’d love to be part of your celebration.
From bespoke print designs and personalised welcome screens to handcrafted guestbooks, custom online galleries, crazy props and a team that genuinely loves what they do, everything we offer has been built from the ground up over nearly ten years. Not by following somebody else’s path, but by creating our own.
