QR code for wedding photos: how it works and how to set one up
A QR code for wedding photos is a printed code that opens your shared album when a guest points their phone camera at it. They add photos and videos from the browser, with no app and no account. Mosaikin gives every event one code, a printable poster to carry it, and a check on every photo before it appears.
By Daniel Page, Founder, Mosaikin
What does a QR code for wedding photos actually do?
The code is a picture of a web address, and your guests’ phones already know how to read it. On an iPhone or an Android phone the camera app recognises the square, offers a link, and one tap opens it. With Mosaikin that link opens your event page in the browser: your names, your welcome message and a button to add photos. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for; a guest can be adding photos within a few seconds of sitting down. See How do I join an event?
The name a guest types is a label, not a login. They can leave it blank, or untick Show my name with my photos so that other guests see “A guest” and only you see who it was. Nobody is asked for an email address or a password. See Do I need an account to join an event?
- Photos and videos from the camera or the camera roll, saved twenty at a time; choose hundreds and the rest follow in batches.
- Videos in MP4, MOV or WebM, up to 50 MB each, sent in pieces so a dropped connection resumes rather than starting again.
- Old photos too. Screenshots, scans of prints and pictures from years ago upload just as well as the ones taken that evening.
Where should the QR code go?
Wherever guests sit still. Mosaikin gives you the code two ways from the Overview tab. View QR downloads it as a PNG for your own designs: a table card, the order of service, a slide. Design Poster builds a finished A4 PDF with your event name, the code and the short web address, in Classic or Evening on every plan and a host-branded design on some. See How do I print a poster or a QR code?
- Table cards. One per table, printed at least 2 cm across. A tiny code on glossy card under a spotlight is the usual reason a scan fails.
- The order of service. A code on the back page is in every guest’s hands during the one quiet moment of the day.
- One poster where everyone passes. The entrance, the bar or beside the cake. The poster is a vector PDF, so it prints sharp at A4 on an office printer and at A2 from a print shop.
- The person with the microphone. One line about the code on the tables does more than any sign.
If your gallery needs an access code
The poster takes care of it: the code is printed under the web address and the poster’s QR carries it, so a guest who scans goes straight in. The plain PNG from View QR does not carry it, so if you use that one in your own design, print the access code beside it.
If you would rather make your own sign than use the poster, the free wedding QR code sign maker prints any link as an A4, A5 or table-card sign in the same styles, in your browser, with nothing stored. Settle the gallery’s readable web address before anything goes to print. The QR code encodes the event’s permanent identifier, so a printed code keeps working if you rename the link later, but the readable address itself changes. See Can I change the web address of my gallery?
What happens after a guest scans?
- The photo is cleaned. Camera metadata, including any location, is stripped out and the rotation is baked in before anything is stored.
- It passes a safety check before it can appear. Anything the check is unsure about waits for you instead of going up.
- It is published, or held in your review queue if you have switched on Require approval, and appears the moment you tap approve.
Normally that is seconds. A guest can also turn off Make photo public for a batch, and those photos come to you rather than the album. Hide anything you would rather not show with a tap and it leaves the gallery, and the screen, at once. See Why has my photo not appeared? and How do I hide or delete a photo?
If the venue signal is poor, photos wait on the guest’s phone and carry on when it returns. The same uploads feed the live slideshow on the venue’s screen: the wedding photo wall describes that in full.
What do you get back afterwards?
Creating the event is free, with up to 30 photos. Upgrade that one event with a single payment, Premium £89 for most weddings, and its Keepsakes tab gives you four things to keep:
- Every photo as one download, at full display size with camera metadata removed, each file named after the guest who took it.
- The guestbook as a printable PDF, and a word cloud of the words your guests used most.
- A highlight reel: an MP4 built from the best-liked photos, the thing to send round the morning after.
- 5 years of archive on an upgraded event, and your own copy whenever you want it: one click, one file.
No subscription, nothing renews, and guests always join free. See pricing.
For what to tell guests before the day, see how to collect photos from wedding guests; weddings on Mosaikin has the whole picture.
Read next: See how Mosaikin works for a wedding
Questions people ask
Do guests need an app to use the QR code?
No. The phone’s own camera reads the code and opens the album in the browser. There is no app, no account and no password, and a guest is never asked for an email address.
What if a guest’s phone will not scan it?
Use the phone’s camera app rather than a scanner app, hold it about ten centimetres back, and check the print: a code under about 2 cm across, or on glossy card under a spotlight, is hard to read. Failing that, the guest types the short link, with the access code if the gallery has one. See The QR code will not scan.
Does the printed code still work if we change the gallery address?
Yes. The code encodes the event’s permanent identifier, not the readable address, so renaming the link does not break a printed code. The readable address itself does change, so settle it before printing.
Can we make our own table cards with the code?
Yes. View QR downloads the code as a PNG to drop into your own design. On a protected or private gallery, print the access code beside it; the ready-made poster does that for you.
How much does a QR code for wedding photos cost?
Creating an event is free, with up to 30 photos. To keep everything from the day, upgrade that one event with a single payment: Premium £89 suits most weddings. There is no subscription and nothing renews.