So your wedding day has come and gone, and your survived the wait after getting your preview photos and you now have your final wedding photo gallery! But now what? Did you realize you would get hundreds and hundreds of images? What are you supposed to do with all of the pictures now? How do you share them with friends and family? How many social media posts are too many? Those are probably a few of your thoughts that start to circle around after you receive your final wedding gallery. So listen to this episode if you’d like some advice on what to actually do with your wedding photos!

Listen to the episode

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

1. First of all, let’s start by making the reveal fun!
   • Get your favorite drinks and snacks and look at the gallery together! Make a date night out of it, laugh and reminisce 
2. Make a list or mark your favorite images
   • One thing that can be hard about a full wedding gallery is narrowing down your favorites. Whether that is to share on social media or to make prints. This can be fun to do together, especially if you want to know what photos your partner loves too, or ones that are just so-so, so you don’t go sharing his least favorite front and center!
   • Now this is going to be different for everyone based on how their photographer delivers the photos, but most online gallery platforms have a favorite button, my clients get the option to click the heart icon and that saves their favorite images in a collation for them to view later.
   • Also bonus bonus tip – some galleries (aka my client galleries) allow you to hide photos too. Basically if you took a cute garter picture but then think that might be a little revealing for your grandma to see, you can hide that from the public version of the gallery. You will still be able to have access to it through your client log in but your great aunt will be spared the opportunity for judgement.
3. Download and back up your photos!
   • If you only do one thing from this list, let it be this one!
   • First, download your images, don’t just screenshot them. Those screenshots are such low quality, you can’t print a screenshot and the download will be so much better!
   • Next, back up your images. I recommend a physical back up as well as a cloud back up. It’s recommended to refresh a physical back up every 5 years- which makes sense with how technology changes (floppy disk, cd, usb and who knows what’s next!)
   • Lastly, it is important to download your photos before your online gallery expires. If you aren’t sure how long your online gallery will be up for just ask your photographer! I know I guarantee an online gallery for a minimum of two years for my current clients.
4. Share your online gallery link with your family and friends!
5. Order prints
   • Order these for yourselves and for your loved ones!
   • Ps. Your photographer can only guarantee the quality of prints ordered from their gallery print stores. I am speaking from experience that I can’t make Walgreens make you a re-print because everything is green. Also, I do not recommend Walgreens!
6. Make an album for yourself
   • Better than printing out all 800 pictures as 4×6 images, make a wedding album so you can flip through your favorite memories.
   • This is where having favorites picked helps a lot!
   • Also bonus tip- if you don’t want to figure out the album design online consider buying an album from your photographer! If they don’t offer albums they will have recommendations on who to order one from. But your photographer can create and adjust a custom album design and will print it in quality paper and materials that last! Not so subtle sell here!
   • To make it even more clear, Taylor Nicole Photography does design and sell custom printed wedding albums!
7. Make an album for parents and grandparents
   • Your parents and grandparents will remember your wedding day forever. Why not gift them with an album of their favorite images as a great memory of your day?

8. Bonus ideas- use your images to leave online google reviews for your wedding vendors

9. Use an image to make a custom thank you card

10. Remember to look through your images every now and then. Maybe on your anniversary to reminisce, an album can be helpful for this too!

To recap what you can do with your wedding photos after you receive your final wedding gallery…

1. Make the gallery viewing an experience
2. Make a list of your favorite images
3. Download and backup your photos
4. Share your online gallery link with family & friends
5. Order prints
6. Order a wedding album for yourself
7. Order a wedding album for your parents or grandparents
8. Bonus- use your photos to leave a google review for your wedding vendors

Thanks for listening (or reading) this episode of the podcast!

xo, Taylor Nicole