When we were planning our wedding trip, one of the obsessions I had was photographs. We booked our wedding photographers (David and Vicki Arndt Photography) before we even had our venue or wedding date confirmed with Disney!
I knew that there was no way we would be able to spend as much time as we wanted to during the wedding weekend, and I worried a lot about capturing all those magical Disney moments that happen on a Disney vacation for everybody. I pre-bought memory maker, and explained to everyone how to use it so I could link all of our pictures together, promising everyone a DVD or downloads of all the pictures…so that took care of Photopass… but how could I get MORE pictures?
For me, pictures ARE memories. If you’re at all like me, when you come home from vacation, looking at the pictures can take you RIGHT BACK. In working on this blog, I’ve been looking at pictures from trips that were years ago, and just seeing the pictures takes me right back to the moments. Sweatshirts and t-shirts get worn out, stained and lost. Toys and plushies get outgrown and broken. Candy and cookies get eaten…but the pictures? The pictures can be there forever! I swear, I’ll be 95 years old, still looking through all my photo albums (probably holographic by then!)
So for the months leading up to the wedding, I kept trying to come up with ways to get everyone to send me pictures from their adventures in the park, even if I wasn’t with them. Ultimately, I decided to create a game. The game would give everyone a list of tasks to choose from, and any task they completed would require a photo be texted or emailed to me for verification. If there was no picture, it didn’t happen. My mom and I decided to offer prizes to the top three individuals or teams (some people played alone, some people played as couples or parent/child) to try and get more participation.
In everyone’s Welcome Bag was an envelope with an envelope inside (along with a bunch of other stuff–the wedding welcome bag project is a separate article in the Wedding section of the site). The envelope looked like this:
Once they opened the envelope, they discovered the game and the instructions. Overall, that first game was a big success. Many members of my family still talk about the game as a big highlight of the weekend (the heck with that silly wedding thing <wink>). I learned a lot from that first game; I’d made it a little too complicated for me (the bride) and I ended up spending a lot of time tabulating scores the day of the wedding, which was pretty funny. 
I don’t know if you can tell in the picture to the right, but I have my laptop out, and the scavenger hunt sheet next to it and I was working through all the pictures and updating a spreadsheet so I could get a score for everyone. The game was a ton of fun, but I learned that it needed to be a lot simpler for everyone, especially whoever was “in charge!” A few months later, a friend that had been at the wedding was going with her family to Disney, and she asked me to make a Photo Scavenger Hunt for them. I used what I’d learned and worked with her to find out what her goals were for the game, and I came up with something that was specific for her family, and they had a BLAST.
A few months later, a family member was planning a mother/daughter trip, and she wanted a one day adventure that did NOT involve the parks at all… We discussed her goals, and I had a great time cooking up another customized Photo Scavenger Hunt, and she told me they had a great time and that it did exactly what she wanted them to do…kept them out of the hotel room, got them exploring and playing together, and they had a great time!
And by this point, I had discovered I had another passion. Since then, I’ve created customized Photo Scavenger Hunts for various family members and friends, and more recently, I’ve done a few for some travel clients, who suggested it was time to make my custom designed Photo Scavenger Hunts available for purchase so that more people could enjoy them, and I could afford to invest the time in making more of them.
So, I have officially opened an Etsy store, and am now making my custom designed Photo Scavenger Hunts available for purchase.
If you think this sounds like something that might be fun for your family or travel group, please check out my store.
DisneyCastleDreaming Etsy Shop
Happy Dreaming!
Brooke