You print a QR for the wedding.
A card on each table. Scan here for photos. Someone meant well.
Then dinner starts. Guests scan. A live album opens on their phones. Pictures arrive while the speeches are still going. The couple looks at midnight anyway.
That is one kind of wedding QR code. A door into a folder that fills up in the room.
The other kind is a shared folder. Scan this. Please send your photos. The morning after, hundreds of mixed guest phone photos land in a chat. WhatsApp. iCloud. Every look, half of them blurred. A night you now have to sort.
The third kind is a code on the order of service. Phones come out for the vows because that is when people scan.
"We just wanted them to scan and shoot," they said. "We did not want to watch the album fill up during dinner."
A wedding QR code should be the join. Not the album.
Polajoy uses a QR. It lives on the table card. Guests download the free Polajoy app, iPhone or Android, and sign in with an account. The scan puts them into the wedding. It is not a browser camera with no download. That is deliberate. Photos keep. Initials stamp. After the wedding, everyone who attended can be sent the night.
A QR that opens a live folder mid-reception is still a phone-out night. A no-account browser camera trades permanence and post-wedding delivery for zero install. Polajoy's QR is the once: app and account, then it is just a camera with a finite roll and a sealed reveal.
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: 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 refresh a gallery during the breakfast. You do not chase a folder on Tuesday. The film is already on the phone, and it waits. Sealed, then reveal, then order if you want prints, then you wait for the paper. Nothing peels on the dancefloor.
This is not a camera left on the cloth. If that object is the plan, there is a note on a wedding table camera guests will actually use. If a planner is already writing the table plan, there is a note they can actually run. If you were circling guest book alternatives, a QR to a live album is one of those, and that note sits here. If the job is collecting guest photos without a chase, there is a note on how to collect wedding photos from guests. If you wanted the short-roll feel without plastic throwaways, there is a note on a digital disposable camera wedding.
If the morning after used to mean mixed guest phone photos in a chat, there is a note on wedding guest photos, without the WhatsApp pile.
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 wedding QR code is not the photographer of the day. Keep them. Names we have written up live on the directory, including London, Bristol, Manchester, Chesterfield, Ashford, and Southport. Photographers also have a hub of their own. If a planner is already in the mix, start with the planner page, including Watford, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Durham.
We host a handful of weddings. Cash, or store credit and free products. Apply on the host page. We read every one.