You want the pictures guests took. You do not want to spend the week after asking for them.
The usual plan is a group chat the next morning. That dump has its own note. This page is the method: how the photos actually get collected, without you becoming the archive.
The usual ways
A shared album. Google Photos, iCloud, a folder someone posts on a card. Pictures arrive while the speeches are still going. Names fall off. Order is whoever uploaded last. The couple looks at midnight anyway.
AirDrop in the car home. Fine for four people on the same kind of phone. Useless for a hundred. Half the room is on the other system, and nobody is standing still.
Disposable cameras on the tables. Honest, and a lot of work. You buy them, label them, collect them at 1am, then wait on an envelope. There is a note on a disposable camera wedding without the bag of cameras. If the object you meant was one camera per setting, there is a note on a wedding table camera guests will actually use.
WhatsApp. Please send your photos. The pictures are real. The mess is the collection. There is a note on collecting guest photos without WhatsApp.
A method that does not chase
You want one place the pictures go. Not a live album filling up during dinner. Not a Tuesday of follow-up texts.
Polajoy is that method.
You set the wedding up. Free. One join code. A card on the table, or a line in the invite. Guests open the app, type the code, and join with an account. After the wedding, everyone who attended can be sent the photos. iPhone and Android.
Each person gets a 30-shot roll. Ordinary guests hard-stop at 0. If you gift a photographer, the friend with the good eye, the sister, 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.
No retakes. That is the point.
Nobody sees the photos before unlock, including the couple. Not a live album. Not a shared folder. One reveal: 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.
The couple picks one of 12 film looks for everyone. After the reveal they can download everything free. A small wordmark sits on those downloads. £2.99 takes it off. If they want paper, they order it. Retroprints. A 12×12" layflat photo book. A wall frame with 16 or 25 apertures. Thank-you cards. Prints never have the wordmark.
You do not collect files. You do not chase the people who meant to send them. The film is already on the phone, and it waits.
If the thing you are writing is the ask itself, the polite message that still becomes a chase, there is a note on how to ask wedding guests for photos. If the thing you are trying not to do is a group chat, start with the note on wedding guest photos without the WhatsApp dump. If what you wanted was the app itself, there is a note on a wedding guest photo app without the morning-after chat. If the job you named was upload, a shared album, a folder, a please-send-this, there is a note on how to have wedding guests upload photos. If the problem was getting them at all, the morning-after chase, there is a note on how to get photos from wedding guests. If the object you were planning was a camera on each table, there is a note on a wedding table camera guests will actually use. If you like the one-roll honesty more than a shared folder, there is a note on a disposable camera wedding without the bag of cameras.
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.
We host a handful of weddings. Cash, or store credit and free products. Apply on the host page. We read every one.