An Army of Wedding Photographers: How to Get Great Snaps in From Guests

Professional photography is expensive; however, it may well be an expense you want to pay to have at your wedding. Great photos from your big day always look stunning when it comes to your wedding thank you card printing. But remember that almost every person attending will have a phone with them and almost all of these have will have a great quality camera.

Of course, having your friends taking photos does not negate the professional photographer in any way, but it can be really nice to get an unscripted, live review of the wedding afterwards. Think of your guest as an army of photographer in all corners of your wedding venue. While the professional photographer will obviously capture your guests in many of their shots, the focus will be on you as the bride and groom. It is nice to see your friends and family interacting and having fun from everyone else’s shot. All you have to do is collect them!

If you are nervous about the types of pictures that might end up on the Internet, then you need to set rules politely with guests at the beginning of the ceremony. If you are relying on them to be able to provide you with a range of pictures from different angles of the wedding, then please do make sure you inform them so that they know to take photos. It is polite to make sure that they are instructed to stay firmly out of the way of the professional photographer, and while he or she is working, avoid any flash photography as this can be very off putting and compromise the shot they are setting up.

 

Social Media

Depending on how unscripted you are prepared to let your wedding be, you could always set up an album on social media, specifically on your Facebook or Instagram accounts. Invite your guests to upload images during the day. Or, if you would rather no photos are uploaded until after the event, you need to make this clear to the guests. Your celebrant will be happy to make a short announcement before the ceremony begins.

Of course, with tagging on social media they don’t even need to add them to your album. You can just be tagged in the photos and they will appear on your timeline. Asking people to pop them into the album means that everything is in one place for you should you wish to go through and look for pictures you want to print. You might well find a treasure that will look superb a part of your photo wedding thank you card.

Cloud Storage

If you would prefer to vet all images before they make their way into the public domain, then you can ask for people to upload them to a specific cloud storage. Somewhere like Dropbox offers lots of storage space and means you can go through the images before deciding what you want to share with the world.

Disposable Cameras

Although it is something of a dying art, disposable cameras are still available to buy. You can leave them on tables and ask guests to take pictures, as and when the mood takes them. This is an extra expense though and the thing with everybody having their own mobile phone is that it cost you nothing to gather these pictures in. If you do go down this route, and you would like to eventually print your chosen photo onto your personalised wedding thank you cards, then make sure you have a good scanner at your disposal!