Guide
Collecting the photos your guests took.
By Max Bryselbout · Updated August 2026
A team away day, a christening, a housewarming and a fortieth birthday have almost nothing in common, except this: the best photos are asleep in the guests' phones, and they never come out. The mechanism for getting them out is the same everywhere. What changes is the audience.
The mechanism: three moves, no account
An album created online before the event, a link, and a QR code on display when the day comes. A guest points their camera at the code, the album opens in the browser, they upload photos and videos and sign with a first name. The whole thing is set out step by step in the photo QR code guide: it is written around a wedding, but nothing in it is specific to one.
One rule holds for every audience: every step you impose costs you guests. Installing an app removes a good share of them, creating an account removes another, typing an address by hand removes more again. The gesture has to fit in ten seconds, or it does not happen. Everything else is comfort; that part is the condition.
What changes from one audience to the next
Family, across three generations
This is the room at a christening, a first communion or a baby shower: the age gap is at its widest. Do not count on the oldest guests scanning of their own accord. The gesture is unfamiliar to them, not difficult: appoint one person per table to do it with them once, rather than hoping a card on the table speaks for itself.
And part of the family is not there at all. The link sent to the family group chat is worth as much as the code on the table: the ones who could not come watch the album fill up, and whoever has older photos adds those too.
Colleagues
For a company party or an away day, or for a leaving do, the problem is the other way round: everyone can scan, nobody is sure they want to upload. The phone is often a work phone, and the question “who sees these, and for how long” is a fair one.
Answer it before it gets asked, in one line in the invitation email: who holds the link, where the photos are hosted, when the album closes, how somebody removes a picture of themselves. What you owe people as the organiser is set out in event photos and the GDPR. A workplace collection that says none of that fills up half as much.
The group of friends
A hen or stag weekend, a housewarming, a birthday among friends: the easiest audience to get uploading, and the hardest to gather. Everyone is already sharing, but in four places at once: stories that vanish after twenty-four hours, two separate group chats, and somebody who is in neither. Open the album on the first evening. With this crowd the issue is not the upload rate, it is the window.
A mixed room
A big birthday, a wedding, a village fete: belt and braces. The QR code on every table, a word out loud at the start of the meal, the link by message afterwards. Each channel catches the people the other two missed.
The right moment: before, during, after
- Before. Open the album when the invitations go out and slip the link inside. You collect the preparations, the journey, the night before: photos nobody ever thinks to ask for.
- During. The QR code on display, and above all somebody saying so. A line from the DJ, or from whoever gives the first toast, does more for participation than any sign: a silent card in the middle of the table decoration gets looked at as decoration.
- After. One message, with the link, within two or three days: that is when the end-of-night photos arrive. Then leave the album open for at least a fortnight. Closing it on the Monday morning costs you half the harvest.
On volume, reckon on three to five photos per guest who plays along. So it is not the number of photos taken that makes an album thin or full, it is the share of guests who upload. The full arithmetic is in how many photos a guest takes: it is worked through on a wedding, but the proportion carries over.
Where to put the code, depending on the venue
- A function room: one card per table, plus a larger one at the entrance and one at the bar. The tables do most of the work: it is the only moment when people are sitting still.
- Outdoors, or somewhere remote: in the shade, since a QR code in full sun scans badly. And test the mobile signal from the spot itself before you print anything.
- A conference or away day: on the opening slide and on the badges. Nobody stands up to scan a poster at the back of the room.
- At home: the hallway and the fridge. For a housewarming or a baby shower, the link sent with the invitation usually beats anything you put on a wall.
Format and wording have a page of their own, getting the QR code sign right, and there is the free QR sign maker if you would rather have the PDF straight away.
The same code, and not only photos
Behind the code on the tables, the guest book opens three ways to leave a message: a written note of up to a thousand characters, a voice message of up to two minutes, or a short video of up to a minute. Nothing more to install, still no account: a first name is enough to sign it. What it collects is the thing that never gets said. At almost every event one or two people speak and the other thirty do not dare; someone who would never have asked for the microphone will happily record forty seconds from their chair.
One setting worth knowing before the day: those messages can be readable by the organisers alone, or by everyone with access to the album. The guest book can also be switched off entirely if you only want photos. The detail is on the guest book page and in the photo and video guest book guide.
What it costs
Medley is in its test phase: unlimited photos and videos, in original quality, Live slideshow included, and nothing to pay. The album is kept at least until December 31, 2026. The detail is on the pricing page, and the other possible methods are compared without flattery in getting your guests' photos back.