The guests' photosthe day after the wedding
The photographer delivers in weeks. The guests already have everything on their phones tonight. This article covers how to ask, by when, with which message, and where the photos should land so they do not end up compressed in thirty different chats.
Before you start
A wedding has two different photo collections. The photographer's is curated, and worth waiting for. The guests' is everything else: the cousins' table, the rush to the buffet, two in the morning. Nobody delivers it, because nobody asks for it the right way. The problem is not technical: it is who asks, when, and where the photos go.
One thing to know up front: if guests uploaded from a QR during the party, half the work is done and this article covers the other half. If there was no QR, it covers all of it.
What you need: the wedding's WhatsApp group (or whichever group already existed), ten minutes the next morning, and a place where the photos arrive in full. Guests need no app.
By when to ask
Within forty-eight hours. On the wedding night people dance; the next morning they scroll through the camera roll and pick their three favourites. That is when the photos are still at the top of the phone and the party is still the topic. A week later the roll is full of something else, and the request sounds like a chore.
And do not ask "send them to me". On WhatsApp you can send up to thirty photos at a time and they arrive compressed, unless the sender picks HD or attaches them as documents, one by one (HD photos, explained by WhatsApp). The outcome of "send them to me" is thirty chats with reduced versions and no single place where they all live.
The message to send in the group
Short, with the link inside, and with a gentle deadline. This one works; copy it and change the names:
"Good morning everyone, thank you for yesterday. If you took photos or videos, upload them here by Sunday: it opens on the phone, no app and no sign-up, and they arrive in high quality. Only we and the people who were with us can see them. Thank you!" And below it, the link.
Three things in that message are not decoration. "No app and no sign-up" removes the main excuse. "In high quality" tells whoever took the good photos that they are not throwing them away. "Only we can see them" answers the question nobody asks out loud.
Where the photos should land
The right place has three requirements: anyone with the link uploads from the browser, the photos keep their original resolution, and only you decide who sees them. On Dumpbox that is called an event, and if you did not create one before the wedding, it takes five minutes the morning after.
- 1
Create the event, or open the one you already had
From dumpbox.ai, "Dump", "New event": the wedding's title, date and place, "Private" so only people with the link see it. If the QR was already on the tables, the event exists and the evening's photos are in it.
- 2
Copy the link and paste it into the message
The event page has the link, copied with one tap. Whoever opens it picks photos from the camera roll and uploads: no app, no account, and they can type their name so you know whose they are.
- 3
Approve, and resend the link once
Photos land in a queue: everyone sees them only once you approve, one by one or all at once. On deadline day resend the link with a "last hours": a second round comes in from the latecomers.
One message in the group, one link, and the photos arrive whole instead of in thirty chats.
The other ways, and where they stop
- A Google Photos shared album: it works well, but adding photos needs a Google account and the app, and not every uncle has one (how it works).
- WeTransfer: everyone sends you a package. On the free plan a transfer stays available for up to three days, so it has to be downloaded right away, and you end up with thirty folders to merge by hand.
- A WhatsApp document: the photo arrives whole, but one at a time, and the chat turns into an archive. Fine for the aunt who took two.
What about the photographer's photos?
They stay a separate thing, and they arrive when they arrive. If the photographer delivers with a link, you can keep them in the same place as the guests' photos, in an album of their own: whoever looks sees theirs first and then everyone's. But that is a choice to make with the photographer, not for them.
We are not a backup: if you delete the event, the photos go with it. Download them when the collection is done and keep them where you keep everything else.
We do not manage the consent of the people in the photos: the approval queue and the remove button are your tools, but the decision stays yours.
Frequently asked questions
- Do guests have to install anything?
- No. The link opens in the phone's browser, you pick the photos and upload. That is why the request works even with people who never install anything.
- Can they send videos too?
- Yes, from the same link. Videos are heavy: it helps to say in the message to upload them on Wi-Fi, and whoever has many does it in the evening from the couch.
- What if we do not like a photo?
- You do not approve it and nobody sees it. You discard it from the queue, and whoever sent it gets no notice.
- What about people who are not in the WhatsApp group?
- The link is an address: send it by text, by email, or read it out loud. Anyone who opens it can upload, without signing up.
Ask tomorrow morning
Create the event tonight or tomorrow, send the link in the group, and the photos arrive whole.