Smiling Dog Entertainment is the premiere provider of photo booth experiences, wedding and party equipment and game rentals, portrait and event photography, and event and party planning in Iowa, northern Missouri, southern Minnesota, eastern Nebraska and western Illinois.
Smiling Dog Entertainment started as Shane Kiesner Photography in the summer of 2016. Born from a lifelong passion for photography and an opportunity to explore a new career path the business began as a portrait and event photography business.
One day, while improving my photography skills through coursework at Des Moines Area Community College, I came across an ad on Facebook presenting the opportunity to buy a photo booth. After much deliberation Susan and I took the plunge, purchased a photo booth and began the sometimes arduous, mostly fun adventure of learning how to operate a photo booth rental business.
We named our photo booth rental business – Photo Booths by SKP (Shane Kiesner Photography).
Our first photo booth rental was a trial run – we donated our services to a friend for their wedding reception. It was an outdoor rental and an interesting experience to say the least.
Our first paid rental came in September of 2016 and we completed 9 total rentals in 2016.
Since our modest beginnings in 2016 we’ve brought fun, smiles, laughter, and love to over 200 weddings, corporate holiday parties, graduation parties, after-proms, elementary school events, fundraisers, bar and bat mitzvahs, birthday and anniversary celebrations. We’ve grown from owning one booth to now owning four. And we’ve grown from a one-man band to requiring the assistance of a cadre of amazing people who’ve helped us service and grow our business.
To continue our business growth and to diversify our income streams we branched out, with the purchase in early 2019 of Des Moines Pub Crawl, into the pub crawl and party business, and later in 2019 into the wedding decor, party equipment, audio-visual and party game rental business.
The expansion of our business interests was done with the intention of building an entertainment business instead of a photo booth or photography business. To better reflect that intention we began thinking of a new name for our business and late in 2019 decided to bring all our separate business entities under one business with the name Smiling Dog Entertainment.
As we begin 2020 we are working on rolling out a number of exciting new entertainment opportunities. Our goals as we expand our brand is to continue to spread fun, smiles, laughter, and love throughout the areas we serve while giving back to the community through our support of organizations such as GiGi’s Playhouse Des Moines, Variety – the Children’s Charity of Iowa, and Mentor Iowa.
We invite you to look around our website and like or follow our Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/SmilingDogEntertainment) to see how we can help bring fun, smiles, laughter, and love to your next event with our custom crafted photo booth experiences, professional photography services, wedding and party equipment and game rentals, and party and event planning services.
When you’re done looking and you’re ready to take your party or event to the next level contact Shane at 515-446-9054 or customerservice@smilingdogentertainment.com
