A lot of couples search Facebook wedding photos and plan an album.
Make a Facebook event, and ask guests to add their photos to it. Or make an album and share the link. Or ask people to send the pictures in Messenger. Please add your photos here. The page was already there for the time, the venue, and who is coming. Now it is also the album.
It feels sorted, until you open it on Sunday.
Guests who never join the event
The event goes out. Some people join and find the album. Some never do. They meant to. They were in the room, then in a taxi, then home. The album looks like the wedding. It is the people who found the page. The aunt at the top table took a clear one of the vows. It is still on her phone. You notice when you look for her and she is not in the album.
The pictures were taken. They never left the camera roll.
A login wall, and guests who will not use Facebook
From the account that owns the event, sharing looks finished. On a guest's phone it often is not. The link opens a Facebook login. A guest with no account. A relative who uses the phone for calls and photos, and will not install the app for one night. They hit the wall and stop.
Some will not put the wedding on Facebook at all. They do not want Saturday in a place their wider friends can open. Create an account. Open the app. Find the event. The speech they filmed is short. The login is longer. They put the phone down.
You asked the whole room. You heard back from the people who already live on Facebook.
A chronological flood, mixed with comments
The people who get through add what the phone offers. The aisle. A ceiling. The menu. The same dance from the back of the room, then again, darker. Under each photo, comments and reactions. A like. A heart. A joke. The album is the night, and it is also a conversation about the night.
The speech is in there. So is the car park. They sit in the order they were added, with the comments still attached. The moment you wanted is a post in a flood, not a moment you can find. No name you can thank, beyond a profile you may not recognise.
Chase posts and messages after the weekend
Saturday was the wedding. Monday is the posts, and the private messages. Did you find the album? Can you add the one of the cake? A cousin says they added it and you cannot see it between the comments. Another says they do not use Facebook and will send the pictures another way. You are still writing while they are back at work.
A few send the photos in Messenger instead. Now the night is split. Some of it in the album. Some of it in a private thread. Some of it still on a phone that never joined.
A sealed guest camera, instead of the album
You do not need a tidier Facebook album. You need the pictures to go somewhere that closes, while they are still being taken.
Polajoy is that place. A guest camera on the phones already in pockets. You set the wedding up yourself, free. Guests join with an event code and an account, so after the wedding the whole set can be sent. iPhone and Android.
Each guest shoots on a 30-shot roll. Ordinary guests hard-stop at 0. No second roll. A gifted or nominated photographer, the friend with the good eye, 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. A short handwritten note is optional, up to 34 characters. Initials always go on the frame. Then it seals until the reveal you chose. Not even you see it first.
When the reveal arrives, 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 sort a feed of comments on Sunday. You do not post again for the people who never joined. You do not ask a guest to make a Facebook account for one night. The film is already on the phone, and it waits.
If the plan was a OneDrive folder, there is a note on OneDrive wedding photos. If the pictures were going to land in the group chat, there is a note on WhatsApp wedding photos. If the search was Google Photos, there is a note on Google Photos wedding albums. If the search was a shared album, there is a note on a shared wedding album, without the midnight scroll. If you want the method, 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. 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.