QR Code for Wedding Photos: How to Set It Up
How a QR code for wedding photos works
The code is just a link in printed form. It holds the address of your event’s upload page. A guest points the phone camera at it, taps the link that appears, and a page opens in the phone’s browser with your event’s name and an Add photos and videos button. They choose photos or videos from their camera roll, and everything arrives in one private gallery that you manage.
Two things follow from that:
Anyone who has the link can upload. Keep the code on paper and out of public social media posts.
The code keeps working all day. One print run covers the ceremony, the dinner and the party, and guests can use it again in the days afterwards.
If you want the full picture of how Reverie fits a wedding, see Reverie for weddings. This guide is about the code itself.
Set it up in six steps
Create the event. Sign up to Reverie and create an event named after the wedding. Creating it is free, and the first 20 uploads are free too, so you can try the whole flow before paying anything.
Create an event link. Open the event’s settings, go to Event links and choose Create event link. Name it after where it will hang, such as “Table cards”. Guests cannot reach the gallery until a link exists.
Copy the QR code. Next to the link, press QR code. Reverie copies the code to your clipboard as a PNG image. Paste it into the tool you design the sign in, whether that is Canva, Word, Pages or your printer’s online editor. Copy link gives you the plain link for messages.
Choose what guests can do. By default guests can only add photos. Under Preferences, in Features, you can switch on Gallery so guests can browse everyone’s photos, and Prompts to offer photo ideas.
Print one card and test it. Scan it with an iPhone and with an Android phone, using the camera app, ideally on mobile data with Wi-Fi switched off. Upload one photo. Test uploads count towards the 20 free ones, and one is enough. Then print the rest.
Tell your guests. The sign is only half of it. See the mistakes below.
One link is enough for most weddings. Create more when you want a separate code for a different place, for example the after-party: you can revoke a single link later without touching the others. Switch on Subgalleries and each link can send its uploads into its own named part of the gallery, for example “Ceremony” and “Party”.
Where to put the QR code
| Place | Why it works | Tip |
|---|---|---|
| Table cards | Guests sit for dinner, phone within reach, and the code is right in front of them | One per table, so nobody has to get up |
| Welcome sign | The first chance, while people arrive with their phones already out | Print it large enough to scan from a step back |
| Bar | People wait there with nothing to do | A small frame or the drinks menu |
| Menu or order of service | Everyone reads it | Put the code at the bottom with one line of text |
| Photo corner or lounge | Where the fun photos happen | Optional, but cheap |
Size and print. A code scans from roughly ten times its width, so a 4 cm code on a table card works at arm’s length and a 20 cm code on a sign works from two metres. Print it dark on a plain light background and keep the white margin that the copied image already has. Do not recolour it, stretch it, crop it, put it on top of a photo, or print it on glossy paper under spotlights: glare makes it unreadable.
What to write on the sign
A good sign says what to do, that it is easy, and what it is for. Keep it to two lines in your own voice. Some examples:
“Scan to share your photos with us. No app, no sign-up.”
“Our photographer can’t be everywhere. You can. Scan and add your photos and videos.”
“Dinner shots, dance-floor videos, the photos of us you took by accident: scan and send them to us.”
Three details help. Say “photos and videos”, because guests forget the videos. For older guests add “Open your phone’s camera and point it at the code.” And do not print the link as text: it is long and cannot be typed. Name a person instead, such as “Can’t scan? Ask Lena for the link.”
What your guests see
Guests open the link in their phone’s own browser. There is no app, no account and no password. They land on a page showing your event’s name and an Add photos and videos button. After they tap it, their phone’s picker opens and they choose what to send, up to 100 files at a time, each up to 250 MB. Photos can be JPEG, PNG or WebP; videos can be the usual formats phones record, such as MP4 and iPhone MOV. They see upload progress and then how many photos and videos were added.
What else they see depends on what you switched on:
Prompts show a short card with a photo idea, with a button to draw another one. Examples you could write: “a photo with someone you met today” or “the best dancer in the room”.
Gallery lets guests browse the photos others have uploaded. Without it, guests only add photos and do not see anyone else’s.
Guests never see your settings or billing, and they cannot download other people’s photos. Only the host can export the originals.
After the wedding
Export the originals. In the event’s Media settings, export everything as one archive or export it to your Google Drive. The files are the originals, exactly as guests uploaded them. The first export of either kind, archive or Google Drive, finalises the event and closes uploads for everyone, so do it once the photos have stopped coming in.
Play a slideshow. In the gallery, the slideshow button plays photos and videos in turn, which works well on a TV at the party or at a brunch the next day.
Mind the time limits. Uploads close 28 days after the most recent upload, and photos and videos are kept for 12 months after that last upload. Export well before then.
Galleries are unlisted, only reachable through your link, and hosted in the EU.
Common mistakes
Printing before testing. A card that does not scan wastes the whole print run. Test one first, on two different phones.
Only one code, at the entrance. People forget by dinner. Put one on every table.
No announcement. This costs the most photos. Ask the officiant, DJ or best man to mention it once, at dinner: “Scan the code on your table and send us your photos and videos.”
A code that is too small or hard to read. Low contrast, busy backgrounds and glossy paper all make scanning fail.
Forgetting the signal. Uploads need a connection, and videos need a decent one. Check that there is mobile signal where guests sit. If it is weak, tell guests they can upload later from home with the same code.
Posting the code publicly. If it ends up on social media, strangers can upload. Revoke the link under Event links and create a new one, but remember printed cards with the old code stop working.
Expecting Gallery and Prompts to be on by default. They are off until you switch them on under Preferences.
Starting only at the party. Send the link to the wedding party in the morning and the getting-ready photos land in the gallery first.
Honest alternatives
A QR code and a photo-sharing page is not the only way, and not always the best one for your wedding.
| Option | Good for | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Google Photos album or Google Drive folder | Free, and you probably already use it | Guests often need a Google account or have to find their way around a file manager, which puts off older relatives |
| A WhatsApp group | Everyone is already there | WhatsApp compresses photos and videos by default, buries them in the chat, and only reaches the people in the group |
| Other QR photo-sharing services | The same idea, sometimes with more design options | Compare whether guests need an app, whether you get the original files, whether the price is one-time or a subscription, and where the data is stored |
| Disposable cameras or a photo booth | Fun to hold, no phones at the table | A limited number of shots, the cost of developing and scanning, and waiting weeks to see them |
| A professional photographer | Posed, edited, reliable shots | Cannot be everywhere at once, which is exactly the gap guest photos fill |
Reverie is free to try with 20 uploads. After that it is a one-time payment per event, with no subscription, and the current price is on the homepage. It has no “reveal later” mode: photos appear in the gallery as soon as they are uploaded. If you want a delayed reveal, a disposable camera is a better fit.
