For Customers – Page 4 – Bark.com Blog

How to hire a great caterer for your next event or party

What party would be complete without delicious food? It’s the secret ingredient that keeps your guests dancing and having fun well into the small hours – so it’s important your caterer serves up a feast everyone can enjoy.

At Bark, we’re proud to be helping people throughout the UK find great local catering companies. But before we start putting you in touch with caterers in your area, you need to know what you’re looking for.

To help you choose the right pro for you, we created this easy guide to hiring a great caterer for your next event or party.

Know your guest profile

While it might be relatively easy to create a menu your closest friends will enjoy, when planning larger events you’ll often need to cater for a range of tastes and eating requirements.

For example, older attendees may prefer a milder, less adventurous menu to younger guests. Meanwhile, guests concerned with health and fitness may prefer more seafood or vegetarian options.

Considering your guests’ preferences in this way should help you arrive at a much clearer idea about what sort of caterer you’re looking for.

Plan your menu

Once you know what sorts of guest you’re expecting, it’s time to start planning your menu.

With Bark, this is easy. Simply indicate what sorts of cuisine you’ll consider when placing your Bark and ask the pros who respond to your request to propose a menu tailored to suit your tastes.

Make sure you know whether you’ll need to provide vegetarian or gluten-free options so your caterer can make sure there’s something for everyone.

Do you want any additional services?

Some caterers are more “full service” than others – and the level of service that’s right for you will depend on the kind of event you’re planning.

If you’re planning a birthday garden party, you might be happy with a simple buffet service. But for a larger event like a wedding, you’ll likely need cutlery, table linens, a full waiter service and more.

Simply select the level of service you’re looking for from our checklist when placing your Bark to help us find local caterers who meet your requirements.

Sample the food in advance

It’s often a good idea to sample a few different caterers’ food before you hire someone. This gives you a chance to check the quality of their cooking and to experience how the food will be presented.

It’s also a great opportunity to meet the chef and determine how flexible they are. Many caterers will be happy to adjust their dishes to your tastes – so don’t be afraid to make your feedback heard.

Click the link below to now place your Bark we’ll do all the legwork to get you multiple quotes from local caterers fast and free.

How to hire a great photographer for your next event, festival or party

Event photography is about more than just turning up to things on time with an expensive camera. If you want a pro who can do your event justice, you need to know they have the skills to get the job done right.

“Hiring a professional photographer for an event is vital in my opinion,” says Bark pro Sorcha Bridge. “If you want lasting photographs from a ‘once in a lifetime’ event like a wedding day, you want the job of recording those precious memories to be in the hands of a professional.”

To discover what qualities you should be looking for when hiring a local event photographer, we spoke to Sorcha about what it takes to capture great moments on film.

“I shoot a wide range of people-based photography,” Sorcha says. “I find with event work the key is to be very present and aware of what is going on around you, so as not to miss any key moments!”

Hiring a great event photographer is easy with Bark! — *A shot for music promotion company Tsumi 4 – photo by Sorcha Bridge*

Photography has been a lifelong passion for Sorcha. But for years she prioritised raising her children as a single mother – and has only relatively recently started pursuing her dream job with help from services like Bark.

“I feel now that the missing piece from the puzzle was photography for me,” she explains. “But having the wisdom I have now with age might have been what was needed to make this work.”

She says the thing that separates covering events from other kinds of photography is that it’s much more difficult to plan and produce everything in advance. As a result, a good event photographer needs to be constantly ready to capture an image at a moment’s notice.

SBP-Brighton-Fringe-festival-2016-12 (1) — *Live music at Brighton Fringe Festival 2016 – photo by Sorcha Bridge*

“I love shooting music events and festivals, there are plenty of fantastic opportunities for creativity shooting performers and live music,” she says. “Preparation is key to making sure everything is covered correctly. Know the running order, do walkthroughs, have meetings prior to know and understand what the client is trying to achieve – plan, plan, plan!”

She adds: “You also have to be quite confident and ‘ballsy’ when directing large groups of people or jostling with other photographers for space at music events.”

When deciding on a photographer cover an event, Sorcha says you should start by taking a look at each pro’s portfolio to view their work and make sure you like their respective styles.

A snapshot of Brighton University's bohemian nightlife – photo by Sorcha Bridge — *A snapshot of Brighton University’s nightlife – photo by Sorcha Bridge*

Once you’ve found a couple of people whose work you like, you can start considering other factors like budget and availability. But, for Sorcha, one particular consideration stands head and shoulders above everything else.

“Personality stands for everything, in my opinion, especially when shooting someone’s wedding – an incredibly intimate event working closely with individuals,” she explains. “I work hard to make people feel comfortable in front of the camera.”

With Bark, finding the right photographer for your next event is easy. We’ll do all the legwork to find available pros in your area, so you can select the one that’s the best fit for you. Place a photography Bark today to get multiple quotes from local pros, fast and free.

The Bark guide to planning a last minute party

Our very own Kai Feller turned another year older last weekend. So, of course, we decided to have a party!

Kai’s very much a “work hard, play hard” kind of guy, and we knew we’d have to pull out all the stops for his birthday – but with over 60,000 professionals at our fingertips, finding the right local pros to help us was easy.

In fact, we had such a great time we decided to put together this quick guide to throwing a last minute party for when you’re next organising an event for your friend, colleague or spouse.

Kick the night off with luxury cocktails

Hiring a skilled bartender or mixologist is an easy way to get the conversation flowing freely at your party and keep your guests supplied with a range of delicious drinks all night long.

They’re the ultimate ice breaker. So whether you like a rich, smoky Old Fashioned, or prefer the zesty freshness of a mojito – place a bartending Bark today to find great cocktail waiters for your next party.

Make sure the food is out of this world

Whether you want simple finger food for your guests to munch on between drinks, or a hearty buffet to line their stomachs – great food is an essential ingredient at any party.

In the end, we decided to ask our favourite personal chef to provide the canapés, and drafted in an outside catering company to cook up a succulent hog roast for later on.

With thousands of registered catering professionals, sorting the perfect food for your party is easy with Bark. Place a request today to get quotes from local caterers fast and free.

‘Wow’ your guests with a close-up magician

We found award-winning sleight of hand artist Adam Keisner by placing a last minute magicians Bark, and were blown away by his supernatural powers.

Inviting a close-up magician to surprise your guests might not be the first thing you think of when planning a party, but it should be! We were guessing how he did it long after he’d gone home for the night.

From illusionists, to escape artists, street magicians and more – place a magicians Bark today to find master magicians in your area.

Now you’re ready for karaoke!

Once the party’s in full swing, it’s time for the main event – and since it was Kai’s birthday, we thought we’d try something a little different.

We found Marvel Booths by placing a karaoke hire Bark, and they delivered a karaoke machine packed with hits right to our front door.

Before long the whole party was belting out the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody and Living On A Prayer at the top of their lungs, making it far and away the best buy of the evening.

Finally, get someone else to do the cleaning

Waking up the morning after a big party, the last thing you want is to spend ages cleaning up beer bottles and scrubbing carpet stains. But, luckily, with Bark you do have to.

Place a house cleaning Bark today to find a local cleaner to handle your post-party tidy up. Then, while they’re taking out the trash and doing the dishes, you can start planning your next big night out!

Train like an Olympian with British Powerlifting Champion, Charlie Shotton-Gale

As far back as the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, the world’s elite athletes have competed to see who is the strongest.

The best weightlifters can shift up to three times their own bodyweight. But even if you’re not interested in developing superhuman strength, weightlifting is a great way to stay in shape. If you want to build a sculpted, muscular physique like Chris Hemsworth or Jessica Ennis-Hill – nothing beats it.

To help you incorporate weight training into your own fitness regime, we spoke to one of our most accomplished personal trainers: British Women’s Powerlifting Champion, Charlie Shotton-Gale.

Q. What inspired you to take up powerlifting?

I’ve been powerlifting for 10 years now. I started because at the time I was playing rugby for Supermarine Ladies and wanted to get stronger – I had my sights set on England Rugby!

Then I was convinced to try out a competition… one lead to two. The first nationals I competed in I won. I was then accepted into the national team three years later and said goodbye to rugby. Best decision of my life.

I’ve been all over the world with powerlifting, made some incredible friends and seen things I never would have done otherwise.

Q. Are you looking forward to the weightlifting events at the Olympics?

Yes, I am! It was the sport I went to watch in 2012. It’s different to powerlifting in that it is about maximum strength and power (speed of movement) whereas powerlifting is solely about max strength and invariably lofting great weights.

I love weightlifting, but I’m not very good at it. I practice and I do include it in my training for power and technique work. But it’s extremely difficult – and the athletes we watch on TV are not only strong but they are technically very accomplished. And they are very, very brave to not only be able to pick up those weights, but to catch them as well!

Q. Would you run us through your favourite workouts?

Favourite upper body workout? Bench. Favourite legs workout? Squat. That’s all you need in life.

I’m just kidding, although not by much. My training consists of multi-body part high volume training, so I never separate legs and upper body workouts. I do them every single session.

One of my favourite workouts would be:

Squats 80% 1RM 5 x 3
Bench 80% 1RM 5 x 3
Tempo 4:4 squats 65% 1RM 3 x 3
Pistols / split squats / Bulgarian squats 3 x 6
Seated Deadlifts 5 x 5

If you ever meet me, you’ll see why I love leg workouts more than upper body!

Q. How important is proper diet and nutrition? What tips do you have for people looking to optimise their diet for weightlifting?

You wouldn’t run a Ferrari on diesel, so why run your body on pizza and chips? Having said that, I am a heavyweight female so my diet is not perfect. I aim for it to be spot on 70% of the time when I’m in post-comp mode, and 80%-90% of the time when I’m gearing up for a competition.

I always notice a difference, when I focus on my diet. Strength improvements can come in as quickly as a week!

All people are different, so I can’t give tips. One person will benefit from a high carb low fat diet, whereas I love a high fat high protein diet. My advice is pick a diet, try it for two weeks, assess your strength during and at the end. Then pick another. Do the same till you find one that makes you feel strong.

My biggest piece of advice is: listen to your body, not to the adverts. Your body knows what it wants – all companies just want to make money off you.

Q. Great athletes have great trainers. How do you help your personal training clients progress with their lifting and achieve their fitness goals?

By following my philosophy of achieving: consistency, consistency, consistency. I create programmes, sessions and lifestyle plans that all boil down to keeping my clients consistent.

In my experience, the most successful people are those that have been consistently working at their chosen task over long periods of time. Okay, okay – some people are naturally gifted freaks. Usain Bolt, for example. But even he has had to work hard for it.

If I have clients that want variety, I give them variety and it keeps them adhering to the changes. If someone wants an education and to learn skills and knowledge, then I teach them to keep them motivated. Whatever it takes to keep my clients consistent is the service I deliver.

Q. What advice would you give to someone just starting out with powerlifting, or any other type of high intensity fitness training?

Don’t start out thinking you could be the next big thing, or aiming for some kind of record. Keep your head down, work hard, enjoy it – and remember that there are no quick fixes. It all takes the most incredible amount of time. But if you enjoy the journey, you will enjoy the result.

GET INSPIRED: Unleash your inner Olympian this summer with Bark

There’s nothing more inspiring than watching the greatest athletes in the world compete for Olympic glory. But why should the likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Mo Farah and Andy Murray have all the fun?

For many of the elite athletes that compete for Team GB in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, this will be the high point of their careers. But your greatest sporting achievement could be yet to come.

So as the clock counts down towards the greatest sporting event on Earth, take a look at our guide to unleashing your own inner Olympian this summer.

Get in shape with a personal trainer

Great athletes have coaches. Just as Toni Minichiello helped Jessica Ennis-Hill get from high school athlete to Olympic gold medallist, your personal trainer will be at your side every step of the way as you achieve your fitness goals.

Whether you’re looking to lose weight, develop speed and agility, build muscle mass or anything else – we’ll find a great local personal trainer to provide you with all the help and support you need.

Place a personal training Bark today and we’ll begin contacting personal trainers in your area on your behalf right away.

Perfect your diet for maximum efficiency

When you’re pushing your body to its limits, you need a balanced diet to help you perform at your peak and recover quickly afterwards.

From managing your protein intake to repair damaged muscle fibres, to helping you replace the electrolytes you lose when you sweat – a great sports nutritionist will create the perfect diet plan for your fitness regime.

Simply place a diet and nutrition Bark today and we’ll start searching for great dieticians in your area right away.

Hone your skills with sports lessons

You don’t have to be a top flight athlete to get a lot out of sports lessons. Not only are they ideal if you’re hoping to get good enough to join your local team, but they’re also great if you want to get fit and have fun in the process.

With 27 separate sports categories on our site – including football lessons, martial arts classes and more – you’re sure to find the perfect sports coach for you with Bark.

Whatever sport you want to learn, place a Bark today and we’ll begin contacting local sports coaches for you right away.

Get washboard abs with Pilates classes

Olympians including swimmer Natalie Coughlin, cyclist Victoria Pendelton and tennis legends like Roger Federer and Serena Williams all cite Pilates as a crucial part of their training regimes.

It’s a great cross training exercise because it focusses on functional movement – working your abs, back, glutes and thighs.

If the idea of toning your body through a combination of controlled movements and breathing exercises appeals to you, place a Pilates Bark now and start getting free quotes from local Pilates instructors.

Have a sports massage – and do it all again!

Whether you’re training to compete at the Olympics, working out at the gym or just stuck in front of a computer all day, you’re likely to experience tight muscular pains and aches at some point.

Sports massages are proven to help you achieve peak performance, reduce the risk of sporting injury and speed up your recovery times.

So when you’re feeling sore after an intense workout, they’re ideal for treating those aches and pains – so you can get back out there and do it all over again as quickly as possible.

How to hire a great local pro
for absolutely anything

Whether you’re planning a loft conversion, or looking for a walker for your dogs at the weekend – hiring a someone to work for you is a big deal. You need to be confident you can pick the best pro for the job, and if you’ve never done it before it can be hard to know where to begin.

Luckily, with Bark you can use the same simple steps to find great local pros for just about anything. Here’s our foolproof guide to hiring great local professionals for whatever you need.

Check out each pro’s Bark profile

Once we’ve tracked down a shortlist of local pros who are eager to help you, the next step is to pick your favourite. To make this process quick and easy, we ask all of our pros to set up their own Bark profile with everything you need to decide if you want to hire them.

Take a look at each’s pros profile page to discover more about them, taking care to consider questions like: Have they done the sort of work you’re asking for before? Do they have the best portfolio of previous work? And do they have the best references?

Most importantly, pay close attention to the reviews each pro has received from other Bark customers, as these give the best indication as to the quality of their work. These reviews will be highlighted with a green “verified” badge.

Agree the price in advance

We understand that budget will often be a key factor when it comes to deciding which of our pros you want to hire. That’s why we make sure each of them can send you a rough estimate when they introduce themselves to you in the Bark Messenger.

In the majority of categories, our budget estimator tool will then show you how that price compares with what other Bark users have been quoted for similar services in the past.

But whether you’re looking for someone to mow your lawn, to plan your wedding or anything else – the most important thing is to agree the price you’ll pay in advance. So when you find someone you want to hire, always be sure to ask for an exact quote before they start work.

Consider staged payments

For jobs where materials are needed, it’s reasonable for your pro to expect part-payment before completion to cover the costs. But note that this is not the same as asking for money upfront, which you should always avoid.

We recommend offering to provide payment in instalments as different project milestones are reached. This gives your pro an added incentive to get the work done quickly, and helps ensure you’re not out of pocket if something happens that means they’re not able to complete the job.

For example, if you were having an extension built onto your house you might agree to pay for the materials when the work begins, then pay the rest upon completion.

Confirm the details in writing

The last step before the work begins is to agree the key details of the job you want doing in writing. This is especially important for larger projects, especially when they involve construction work.

Getting a written quote will be a big help in the unlikely event that you have to deal with some kind of dispute further down the line. Make sure your quote spells out exactly what work will be done, when it should be completed by and who will supply the necessary materials.

Review your pro to help other Bark users

Once you’ve hammered out the details, you’re ready to hire your pro! But before you wrap things up, there is one more thing we ask you to do.

You see, we’re proud of the community we’re creating here at Bark. People using our service can draw on the experiences of hundreds of thousands of other users to find the right pro for them – and that wouldn’t be possible without ordinary people like yourself.

So after the work has been done, we strongly encourage you to leave a review about your experiences on your chosen pro’s Bark profile. That way, we can continue improving Bark so it’s even easier to find great local pros the next time you use our service.

Planning your wedding is easy with Bark

Your wedding will be the single happiest day of your life. But with expectations sky high, the pressure of getting it all sorted can easily take the shine off proceedings. Luckily, Bark is here to help.

With thousands of registered pros providing everything from wedding photography to wedding makeup, venue hire and more – we’ll do all the legwork to make planning your wedding a breeze.

Placing a Bark is quick and stress-free, and with all your quotes in one place choosing the right pros for your wedding couldn’t be easier.

“What a fantastic site!” writes Emma Williams on our Trustpilot page. “I’ve used this to find room decor, flowers, photographers and hair and makeup artists for my wedding.”

She continues: “Type in what you need and the professionals come to you. It’s an easy way to compare prices and to check out people I wouldn’t normally have been able to find through search engines!”

*Another happy couple ties the knot with Bark – photo by Laine Apine Photography*

“After searching for a wedding photographer without success we fell on Bark much by accident really,” adds another happy couple.

“Very pleased we did. Within a few hours we had several contact us and through these we got just what we were looking for.”

Brides Magazine estimates the average UK wedding costs upwards of £30,000, and with big decisions such as theme or venue typically being made up to 12 months in advance, planning one by yourself can be a huge commitment.

Finding everything the old fashioned way can take months of hard work and graft, but with Bark it couldn’t be easier. As soon as you’ve placed a request on our site you can sit back and relax, and the pros will come to you.

You’ll often start receiving quotes within hours of placing your request, saving you bags of time if you’re planning in advance – and and making us great for last minute emergencies.

“Our wedding planner had to resign for health reasons two months before the wedding,” writes one Bark user. “[We] found a replacement on Bark in 24 hours! Amazing.”

“I’ve posted several ‘Barks’ over the past six months or so while planning my wedding and have found it really useful,” adds Ami Stoppard. “It makes a big difference when you’re having to organise a lot that companies are able to reach out to you, as opposed to you having to send off multiple emails.”

*Lovers kiss on their wedding day – photo by Laine Apine Photography*

With hundreds of categories at your fingertips, planning your perfect wedding is easy with Bark. Whatever you need, we’ll scour the internet to get you quotes from the best local pros available on your big day, so you can choose the one that’s right for you.

So whether you need a great wedding DJ, dress rental, wedding cake bakers, makeup artists or anything else – we can help. Click the link below to place your Bark and we’ll start contacting local pros for you right away.

Why you should hire a photo booth for your next corporate event

Everyone knows that photo booths are a great alternative to traditional photographers at weddings and anniversary parties. But for household brands like Dolby, Listerine and Adidas, they can also be powerful promotional tools.

Modern photo booths are kitted out with a host of marketing features that, with a little bit of creativity, can be a great way to promote your business at any corporate event. To find out exactly how some of the world’s largest companies do it, we spoke to Martyn Doherty from leading photo booth hire company, The Photo Cabin.

“Corporate photo booth hire is quite a broad area,” Martyn explains. “It covers anything from conferences in the day, as a sort of breakout thing for people to do, to work parties, product launches, festivals, fashion weeks – literally any kind of corporate event you can think of.”

Companies including Adidas, Listerine, PayPal, Nokia and more all make use of photo booth hire services at big corporate events – and right now, Martyn is working with Dolby at the Ministry of Sound to promote their latest clubbing collaboration.

“They’ve got the world’s first nightclub surround sound that they’ve just installed, so everything has to be remastered from stereo to Dolby Atmos,” he explains. “At every event they’re doing, they’ll have a photo booth there to help promote this night. So they’re doing animated GIFs, data capture and stuff like that.”

Having a photo booth present at the Ministry of Sound will create yet another way for people to enjoy themselves on these immersive new club nights. But the marketing benefits go way beyond the booth itself.

*Adidas hired The Photo Cabin to help them cover Milan Fashion Week*

“Data capture’s probably one of the most requested things with corporate photo booth hire,” Martyn says. “The most common way is just capturing an email address. So the user can just email their photo to themselves, they type it in and we can capture it that way.”

“On Facebook upload, we can also get your name, age, current city, date of birth, email address,” he adds. “Depending on the user’s privacy settings, you can get basically everything.”

Letting people share their photo booth pictures on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is also a great way to boost your brand’s social media presence. This approach worked wonders for Adidas when they commissioned a custom photo booth for the last Milan Fashion Week.

“At Milan Fashion Week [Adidas] were targeting certain famous people outside venues, getting them to come over and have their photo taken,” Martyn says. “They were getting like 40,000 ‘likes’ when they uploaded the pictures online.”

Listerine enjoyed similar success with their photo booth campaign at the 2014 Isle of Wight Festival, generating over 130,000 Facebook impressions in just three days.

Listerine generated nearly 140,000 with their photo booth at 2014's Isle of Wight Festival — *Listerine generated nearly 140,000 Facebook impressions with their photo booth at 2014’s Isle of Wight Festival*

“From 400 digital prints, the number of impressions was something like 140,000,” says Martyn. “The ROI for essentially what’s an advert to be seen that many times is huge.”

“But also, it’s not just an advert,” he adds. “It’s going to be kept on that person’s Facebook profile forever, because they’re tagging their friends to it and they’ve liked it.”

By simultaneously letting you capture valuable data about your customer base and boost your online presence through photo sharing, photo booths really are a promotional tool like no other. But it’s not just the world’s biggest brands that are using them to promote their business and attract new customers – soon, you could be too.

Place a photo booth hire Bark today and we’ll find a great photo booth hire company for your next corporate event right away.

How to hire the right landscape designer for your garden

If you’re reading this, you understand what a magical place a garden can be. Where some see little more than a patch of of fenced-in lawn with a shed at one end, you see possibility.

It’s a safe place for your kids to play, somewhere you can relax on a sunny afternoon, a party venue and loads more besides. All you need is the right pro to make your garden dreams a reality.

A quality landscaper will help you create the garden of your dreams. But, for many people, finding someone you can trust to get the job done right is easier said than done.

Well, that ends today. Here at Bark, we believe finding skilled local landscape designers online should be quick and easy. So right now, we’re going to show you how to find the right pro you.

How to work out your budget

Before we get started, let’s talk price. A good landscaper will usually tailor their plans to fit your budget, but there are a couple of factors that might affect their quote.

For one thing, if your garden sits on difficult terrain, you may need to pay more to get the end result you’re looking for. As one of our pros told us recently, it’s a lot harder to turf a sloping lawn than a flat one.

But, to help you work out a ballpark figure, we’ve created a handy tool to show you what fixing up your garden is likely to cost. We call it the Budget Estimator, and how it works is simple.

When you place a Bark on our site, it shows you a summary of what people with similar requirements are usually quoted. This should give you a ‘rough and ready’ idea of what a realistic budget is for your project.

What to look for in a landscape gardener

With the question of what your project is likely to cost out of the way, it’s time to start comparing quotes – and that’s what we do best.

From the moment you place your Bark, we’ll start contacting skilled landscapers in your area, and you’ll often start receiving quotes within a couple of hours.

Everyone you hear from will be ready and available to renovate your garden, so all that’s left is for you to choose your favourite. Here’s a few things to think about when making your decision:

Do they have a solid reputation?

Reviews are a great way to gauge what to expect from a landscaper, which is why we assign our pros ‘star ratings’ based on how previous customers felt about their work.

Be sure to take a look at each pro’s Bark profile and website to see what people have been saying about them.

What’s their portfolio like?

A smart company will only post their best work online, so don’t be surprised if every landscaper you find has a great portfolio.

But having said that, they’re still well worth looking at to get a feel for the kind of work each pro normally does. Check to see if they’ve done the sort of thing you’re looking for in the past and made a good job of it.

Are you looking for specialization?

Many landscaping companies have teams of specialists to help with the different aspects of your project.

It can work out cheaper to hire individuals for each task separately, but generally people prefer the convenience of having one firm that can handle everything for them.

Do they have local experience?

When it comes to gardening services, local businesses have a real edge. They know which plants are most likely to thrive in your specific microclimate and they’re familiar with local laws and regulations.

That’s why we believe it pays to find someone with local experience to fix up your garden, rather than going to a major chain.

When you find someone you like the look of, invite them round to take a look at your garden and give you an estimate. Most landscapers will provide free consultations, and it’s a great opportunity to ask a final few questions to iron out the important details:

How many years’ experience do they have? Are they fully insured? Are they certified by a UK Trade Association? What’s the breakdown of their quote? And does their work come with a guarantee?

Once you’re satisfied you’ve found the right pro, all that’s left is to get a written contract of works and get the ball rolling – job done!

Get FREE landscaping quotes today

Now you’ve seen how easy it can be to hire a landscaper with Bark, it’s time to get you the garden on your dreams.

Remember, we do all the legwork for you to find the best landscapers in your area, and send personalised estimates direct to your inbox. Simply click the link below to find skilled landscapers in your area today.

Find a great landscaper with Bark today.

How to pick the perfect photo booth for your party, wedding or corporate event

Photo booths are the ultimate alternative to hiring a traditional photographer. Whatever event you’re planning, your guests will love piling inside and drawing the curtain to take a few cheeky pictures.

At weddings and anniversaries, they’re a great way to capture group photos without needing to call the party to a halt while everyone gets in position – and they’re the perfect icebreaker at corporate or work events where your guests might not know each other very well.

But with so many different types available, choosing the right booth for your event can be tricky. So we put together this handy guide to help you make up your mind.

Why you can’t go wrong with a classic booth

You can get a whole range of booths for a fraction of what you’d spend on a professional photographer, from affordable passport photo-style boxes, to luxury enclosed booths.

Top-of-the-line booths often come complete with a green screen, live social media sharing, touchscreen displays and more – like this one from leading photo booth hire company The Photo Cabin:

Screen Shot 2016-05-24 at 13.03.42 — *The Photo Cabin in action at the launch party for Supra’s Skytop IV trainer*

A classic booth like this will add a touch of class to any party. If you want premium features, and are happy to pay a premium price to get them, then look no further.

For great group photos, try an open air booth

For something a little different, why not try one of these ‘open air’ booths. With its tower-style camera and separate backdrop, your guests can simply gather round and strike a pose.

“The plus with these is that you can fit a hell of a lot more people in the photo, which is particularly good for weddings or corporate events,” explains The Photo Cabin’s Martyn Doherty. “Like if you want a big ‘groomsman and his mates’ photo, or if everyone at the wedding wants to try and fit in.”

Photo Tower 3 — *Tower-style booths like this one are perfect for taking fun group snaps!*

“You can’t do that sort of thing with a normal enclosed booth,” he adds. “The only type of event it’s not great for is, like, a kids’ party, because they’re not tall enough, basically.”

As the camera is at a fixed height, these booths aren’t really designed for small children – but they’re absolutely perfect for weddings, corporate events, birthday parties and anything else.

Save money with this “booth on a budget”

There’s also a range of cheaper booths available if your primary concern is getting a good deal. Expect fewer bells and whistles, but it’s still possible to hire a perfectly good mobile booth like this one without breaking the bank:

Photo Box 1 — *Affordable cabins like The Photo Box can be ideal for parties and corporate events*

“That’s your booth on a budget,” says Martyn. “It’s not quite as big, so you can only really fit three people in, max. The features are more limited as well. It’s not got a touch screen.”

“It’s really quick to set up,” he adds. “You literally wheel it in. You put it down, it expands out of itself and it’s got a five-minute setup time.”

Opting for a ‘stripped down’ booth like this one is a great way to get what you need on a tight budget. So if you want to keep your costs to a minimum, we recommend asking for a mobile booth.

Stand out from the crowd with a custom booth

Or, for something truly unique, you can even have your booth customised with a vinyl wrap or kitted out to include GIFs, slow motion videos, social media sharing, data capture and more.

One of our personal favourite custom contraptions is this cool GIF booth the guys at The Photo Cabin built into an arcade machine cabinet:

We converted an old arcade machine into an animated GIF photo booth. Pretty cool huh? #PhotoBooth #GIFBooth #GIF #ArcadeMachine

A video posted by The Photo Cabin (@thephotocabin) on Mar 24, 2016 at 7:30pm PDT

“I didn’t want to destroy an old school machine,” Martyn explains. “Taking like a vintage Pacman machine and killing it seemed wrong. So I just got a new arcade cabinet and built it into that.”

With so many different customisations available, the only real limit here is your imagination. Simply specify your requirements in your Bark and we’ll find you the right pro for the job.

Place a photo booth hire Bark today

We hope this guide has helped you decide what sort of photo booth you want for your next party. Now you’ve seen the full range of booths on offer, you’re ready to hire one of your very own!

Whether you’re planning a wedding, corporate event or anything else – we’ll help you find the perfect booth for you. Simply let us know what you’re looking for and we’ll start contacting specialists in your area right away.