How to send your wedding photos to the coupleall of them, in high quality
You came home with eighty photos and six videos, and you want the couple to get them as they are, not shrunk by a chat. Here is what each way you already have actually does, and the simplest one if the couple left a link or a QR.
Before you start
The photo that leaves your phone and the one that reaches the couple are not always the same. Chats shrink and recompress, email has a size limit, transfer services expire. Before picking a way, ask yourself two things: how many there are, and whether the couple already said where to put them. If they left a link or a QR, skip to the last section: it is the shortest road.
What you need: the phone with the photos, Wi-Fi if there are videos, and ten minutes. You need no account for any of the ways below, except email.
The usual ways, with their limits
- WhatsApp, in a chat: handy and instant, but the photos arrive reduced. If you pick "HD" before sending, the resolution holds up better, although some compression remains; WhatsApp itself explains how HD photos work. For the true original you have to send the photo as a document, one at a time.
- Email: attachments have a limit per message. Gmail, for instance, states its limit and moves large attachments to Drive. Fine for five photos, not for eighty.
- WeTransfer and the like: you send one whole package, at full quality, no account. But on the free plan a transfer stays available for up to three days: if the couple is on their honeymoon, they find it expired.
- AirDrop: whole and instant, but only between Apple devices and only in person (how it works). Perfect if you see them the week after, useless from a distance.
The worst way is the one that feels the kindest: dropping everything in the wedding group. The photos arrive compressed to forty people, and the couple gets them mixed in with two hundred messages of congratulations.
If there are many: select first
Eighty photos are a lot for whoever receives them, not for whoever sends them. Drop the duplicates, the blurry ones and the ones showing only your shoulder. Keep the videos whole: trimming them on the phone often recompresses them. If you have an iPhone and the photos are HEIC, do not worry: any serious road takes them as they are.
If the couple left a link or a QR
More and more often there is a sign with a QR on the tables, or a link going round the group: that is the couple's shared gallery. If it is on Dumpbox, this is how it goes.
- 1
Open the link, or scan the QR
A page opens in the phone's browser. Nothing to install, no account, no email to leave.
- 2
Pick the photos and videos from the camera roll
You can select many at once. If it asks for your name, type it: it helps the couple know whose photos they are, but it is optional.
- 3
Upload, and wait for the tick
The photos go up at their original resolution. When the green tick appears they have arrived and sit in the couple's queue, where they approve them before anyone else sees them. If you change your mind about one, just ask the couple not to approve it.
Three gestures you already know. The photos arrive whole, and the couple gets an album instead of a chat.
And if there is no link
You can propose one: a shared gallery takes five minutes to create, you send the link to the couple and they pass it on. Whoever organises approves the photos, and you have solved the problem for the other thirty-nine guests too. Otherwise, WeTransfer right away and a message to the couple to download it within three days.
The couple's album is not a backup of your photos: uploading them there does not save them anywhere for you. Your copies stay on your phone or in your cloud.
Who sees the photos is the couple's decision, not ours: if you want a photo to stay between a few people, tell them.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I have to sign up to upload to the couple's link?
- No. The link opens a page in the browser and the upload happens there. The name is optional, and no email is asked for.
- Do the photos really arrive whole?
- Yes: through the couple's link the photos are kept at the resolution you shot them at. Through WhatsApp they are not, unless you send them as documents one at a time.
- Can I send videos too?
- Yes, from the same link. They are heavy: do it on Wi-Fi with the phone charging, and do not close the page until you see the tick.
- I uploaded a photo by mistake. Can I remove it?
- Yes, from the same phone you sent it from, while it sits in the couple's queue. And in any case the couple sees it before anyone else and can leave it unapproved.
No link? Propose one
A shared gallery takes five minutes to create and solves the problem for every guest, not just for you.