A South Florida entrepreneur is turning weddings into a side business. Zach Valerto owns Sparrow Booth Company, a photo booth rental company that started with small family gatherings and now operates six high-end booths, with multiple bookings a day, mostly at weddings across the region.
Valerto told CBS News Miami that he works for an airline and the Florida Panthers in addition to running the company. He said South Florida is expensive and that he does not know how many people get by without a side job.
The timing is favorable. According to the report, South Florida is the fifth-largest wedding market in the country, with more than 44,000 weddings a year across the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area. Couples spend an estimated $1.6 billion on weddings in the region, and the average celebration costs about $36,284.
Startup costs were real. Each booth costs about $5,000, and each typically needs five bookings to pay for itself. Valerto said he had no business background and learned mostly from online videos, which he jokingly called “YouTube University.”
Most of his new business now comes from Instagram and word of mouth, he said, as wedding guests who rent a booth often book their own events. The story is part of CBS News Miami’s Hustle & Heart series, which profiles South Floridians earning extra income from their passions.
