2 August 2026
The photographer's gallery arrives a few weeks after the wedding. Most couples look through it once and mean to print something. Ask them two years later and the answer is usually the same.
The photographer's gallery arrives four to six weeks after the wedding. It is several hundred images, beautifully edited, delivered as a link. Most couples look through it over a weekend and then the tab gets pushed back.
Ask them a year later and they will tell you they mean to print something. Ask them five years later and the answer is usually the same.
The decisions you are actually making
Printing wedding photos is not one decision. It is several smaller ones, and they are easier if you take them in order.
- 1What format: a book, prints for the wall, a canvas, or some combination
- 2Which photos: the photographer's gallery, the guest photos, or both
- 3Which service
- 4When: and the honest answer is sooner than you think
Formats worth knowing about
A photobook
The format most couples end up with. A book of 40 to 100 pages holds a good edit of the day and can sit on a shelf and be opened. Lay flat binding is worth paying for specifically for a wedding book: it opens completely flat so photos across the middle of a spread are not eaten by the spine.
A drag-and-drop service gives you control over every page. An automatic service picks the photos and the layout for you. Both produce a finished book. The drag-and-drop version takes considerably longer.
Framed prints
One or two images printed large and framed. The ceremony, the first look, the portrait at the venue. These tend to stay on walls for decades and are noticed by every person who visits. A book tends to be opened less often. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Canvas prints
Work well for one hero image, particularly where the photo has a landscape quality. Less suited to portraits with fine detail. Canvas has a texture that works against very sharp images.
Loose prints
A set of 6x4 or 5x7 prints from the day. Inexpensive and tangible. Worth ordering for a handful of specific images rather than as the main output: sets of loose prints almost always end up in a box rather than looked at.
The guest photos
The photographer's gallery is one set. The guest photos are another, and they are almost always unprinted.
Getting them requires asking while people still have the day on their minds. A week after the wedding is about right. After a month, people have cleared space on their phones and the photos may be in backups they do not think to check.
If collecting them, make sure you are getting original files and not versions compressed by a messaging app. WhatsApp and iMessage reduce file size significantly. Both Google Photos and Apple shared albums send originals. The difference shows in print.
Do not leave it too long
Most shared gallery links from photographers expire. Pixieset free plans typically last around a year. ShootProof and similar services vary. The clock starts from delivery, not from the wedding date.
Download the gallery to a hard drive before you do anything else
Even if you do not print anything immediately, you need the files somewhere that does not depend on a subscription or a link. An external hard drive plus one cloud backup is enough. Do this before the link has a chance to expire.
Motivation also tends to drop with time. Couples who print within the first year almost always describe it as the right call. The ones who wait two or three years describe it as a task that never quite happens.
What we do
We make the guest photos book, not the photographer's gallery book. If you have already dealt with the main gallery and want to do something with the photos from everyone else's phones, this is the product for that.
One person organises it. Guests join with a short code, the app collects their best shots from the day, and the organiser builds a lay flat hardcover book from the full set. £99 with delivery. iPhone only.