A lot of couples search Google Photos wedding and plan a shared library.
Make the library. Put the names on it. Send the link in the invite, or on a card. Please add your photos here. The app is already on most phones. Now it is also the album.
It feels sorted, until you open it on Sunday.
Guests who never join the library
The link goes out. Some people tap it and they are in. Some never do. They meant to. They were in the room, then in a taxi, then home. The library looks busy because the people who joined added a lot. The people who never joined are simply missing. You notice when you look for a face from the top table and it is not there.
Monday is the chase. Please join the library. Please add the speech. Please add the one of the cake. A few do. The rest are already on a train.
Camera roll quality, next to a lighter share
One guest adds the large photo from their camera roll. Sharp. The room as they saw it. Another adds a lighter copy, the one that already went through a message, or the smaller one the phone offered when the signal was poor. The library keeps both. A clear portrait sits next to a soft one of the same toast. You cannot tell which they meant to keep until you open each one.
You asked for the night. You got a mix, and the sorting is yours.
Names and moments in a chronological flood
Google Photos lines the day up by the clock. The aisle. A ceiling. The menu. The same dance from the back of the room, then again, darker. The speech is in there. So is the car park. The cousin's name is a Google account, or nothing. You knew who took it in the room. In the library the person is a contact you do not recognise, or a gap.
The moment you wanted sits in the order the phones recorded, not the order of the day as you lived it.
Permissions that outlive the weekend
The library was for Saturday. On Monday it is still shared. On the way home someone can still add, and still look. You meant a weekend. You got a library that stays open until someone remembers to close it. Months later a relative can still open the whole night. The share did its job on the day. It did not know when to stop.
A sealed guest camera, instead of the library
You do not need a tidier Google Photos library. 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 library on Sunday. You do not chase the people who never joined. You do not leave the whole night open for months. The film is already on the phone, and it waits.
If you already know a Google Photos album is the wrong home, there is a sibling note on a Google Photos wedding album alternative. This page is for the search that starts inside Google Photos: you meant to collect the wedding in a shared library, and the library became homework.
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 table is mostly iPhone, there is a note on an iCloud Shared Album wedding alternative. If the link on the card was a Dropbox folder, there is a note on a Dropbox wedding photos alternative. If the search was shared albums in general, 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. 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.