Guide
The live wedding slideshow.
By Max Bryselbout · Updated August 2026
While the party is in full swing, the photo somebody took ninety seconds ago appears on the big screen. A live photo wall changes the mood of an evening, and it fills the album far better than a sign on a table ever will. Here is the kit to plan for, how to start it, and what separates a photo wall people watch from a screensaver they ignore.
What it is, and why the album fills up
A live slideshow (a photo wall, a live wall, a photo feed: everyone calls it something different) projects the pictures your guests have only just taken. It is not a montage prepared in advance: images arrive through the evening, seconds after they are uploaded. Guests scan the QR code on the tables, upload without an app or an account, and it goes up on the wall. The slideshow is only the visible half of a shared wedding album: everything that appears on screen lands in the album too, and you leave with all of it.
The practical effect is the one nobody plans for: when guests see themselves on a screen, they upload more. A photo shown large in front of the whole room is a small piece of recognition, and it makes the next table want to try theirs. Without a screen, plenty of people scan once and then forget; with the wall running, collecting photos becomes one of the evening's games. The same thing happens at a company party or a big birthday, where a photo wall does the ice-breaking for you.
The kit: what you actually need
Nothing exotic. Three things are enough.
- A screen or a projector. The television in the function room, a screen on a stand, or a projector pointed at a screen or a pale wall. The bigger the image, the stronger the effect: a 32-inch television at the far end of a barn will not carry the room.
- A computer, a set-top box or an HDMI stick. Anything that can open a web page and go full screen: a laptop on an HDMI cable, a Chromecast or an Apple TV, even a tablet. Take the adapter, and take a spare cable.
- An internet connection. The venue's wifi if it is steady, otherwise a hotspot from a phone. A connection that holds all evening matters far more than a fast one: the slideshow pulls new photos as they arrive, and that is a trickle, not a torrent.
Your guests need nothing at all: their phone and the QR code, and that is the end of the list. No app, no account, no password anyone has to remember at one in the morning.
Starting it, in three moves
- Create the album and get its QR code, exactly as you would for any collection: the slideshow is fed by that same album.
- Open the Live slideshow page from the album menu, on whichever device is plugged into the screen.
- Go full screen and leave it alone. Every new photo joins the rotation on its own, and there is nothing for you to press for the rest of the night.
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. One piece of advice worth more than the rest: run the projection the day before, in the room itself, rather than discovering the venue's HDMI socket in front of a hundred people.
What makes a good photo wall, not a bleak grid
Projecting thumbnails in a grid, phone-gallery style, falls flat within ten minutes. A photo wall that people keep glancing at is a piece of staging.
- Full frame on a blurred background. Each photo fills the screen, and the space left around a portrait is filled with a blurred version of the image rather than two black bars.
- Gentle movement. A slow Ken Burns drift and cross-fades give the wall a pulse without making anyone seasick.
- Varied compositions. Alternating full-frame pictures with occasional mosaics of several photos keeps the rhythm from turning into a metronome.
- Videos included, and silent. They run in the same feed as the photos, full frame, with the sound off: a projection happens over the music of the evening, and a phone recording pushed through the PA would kill the room.
- Reactions on screen. When guests react from their phones, a shower of emoji crosses the image. The wall stops being a slideshow and starts being something the room is doing together.
That care is the whole difference between a photo wall people remember and a screensaver. We set this approach against the others in our comparison of wedding photo apps.
Keeping control of what goes on screen
Projecting in public needs a safety net. As the organiser you can pull a photo out of the slideshow, and, if you turn the setting on, approve uploads before they appear at all. That is enough to catch a screenshot someone uploaded by accident, or a picture a guest would rather keep to themselves.
Medley uses no facial recognition: photos are never analysed or sorted by face. Everything is hosted in the European Union, with OVH in France, in line with the GDPR. And to carry the evening past the pictures, look at the photo and video guest book, which gathers what your guests wanted to say in that same album.