You are choosing between disposable cameras and a wedding QR code.
One plan is a bag of plastic cameras on the tables. The other is a code on a card. Scan here for the photos. A live album starts filling while dinner is still going.
Both are trying to catch the bits the photographer does not. The bag has the feeling. The scan has the convenience. Neither is quite the night you meant.
The bag of cameras
Disposable cameras have the nostalgia. A short roll. A flash. Something that stops.
Then the bag. You pay for the cameras before anyone has taken a picture. You label them, put them out, and collect what is left at the end. Half leave in a coat. Some frames come back blurred, or dark, or a thumb. You wait on developing. The plastic is still plastic when the envelope arrives.
The feeling was real. The pile of throwaways, the lost frames, and the wait were the cost.
The live scan album
The QR pitch drops the bag. No cameras to buy. No developing. Guests scan a code and upload into an album that fills during dinner. Uploads are often unlimited. Often there is no account. It is a browser page, not an app.
Phones stay out while the speeches run. You said you would look later. You look at midnight anyway. The folder is already open in the room.
You traded the bag for a live album, and for a scroll that does not stop.
A short sealed roll
Polajoy is the third answer. A QR on the table card joins a finite sealed roll. Not a bag of film cameras. Not a live album at dinner.
Guests download the free Polajoy app, iPhone or Android, and sign in with an account. The scan is the join into the wedding. It is not a browser camera with no download.
Each ordinary guest gets one 30-shot roll. Hard-stop at 0. No second roll. No paywall. If you nominate a photographer, the friend with the good eye, they can start another free 30-shot roll. Ordinary guests do not.
After each shot, ten seconds to Accept or Void. Timeout or a screenshot voids it. A void does not spend a frame. After Accept they still see the photo on the sign screen. A short handwritten note is optional, up to 34 characters. Initials always go on the frame. It seals on Send, then it is gone until unlock.
Nobody sees the photos before unlock, including the couple. Not a live album. One reveal, at a time you set: the end of the night, the next morning, a week later, or a time after the event ends. Then the shop is there if you want paper. Nothing auto-ships. Free downloads carry a small wordmark. £2.99 takes it off. Prints never have it.
You do not buy the bag. You do not watch an album fill during the speeches. The film is already on the phone, and it waits.
If the plan is still the bag, there is a note on a disposable camera alternative that keeps the short roll, and on a digital disposable camera wedding, without the throwaways. If you were running the disposable wedding itself, that note is a disposable camera wedding, without the disposable cameras. If the thing you wanted was a roll that stops at thirty, there is a note on a wedding film roll that actually stops at thirty.
If the search was the QR on the table card, there is a note on a wedding QR code for guest photos. If the pictures were going to land in the group chat, there is a note on WhatsApp wedding photos (and why the chat is a bad album). If the job is how a couple actually gathers the pictures, there is a note on how to collect wedding photos from guests.
Setup is free. Pay only if you want prints afterwards. Retroprints, a 12×12" layflat photo book, a wall frame with 16 or 25 apertures, thank-you cards. The complete guide walks through looks, table cards, and the reveal. These notes are written by Richard Lovatt, with Kitty. The rest live with the other articles.
A guest camera sits next to the photographer you booked. It does not replace them. Names we have written up live on the directory, including London, Bristol, Manchester, and Edinburgh.
We host a handful of weddings. Cash, or store credit and free products. Apply on the host page. We read every one.