You have your photos, you’ve looked at them a million times, and now you’re wondering: What am I supposed to do with these? Receiving your final gallery might feel like everything is wrapped up, but there are just a few more quick (and easy) steps that you need to do to make sure your photos are safe for a lifetime.
The first thing that you need to do is to backup your photos. And then back them up again. Contractually I am only required to keep your photos stored for one year, so you want to make sure that you have them all stored in multiple places, on multiple external hard drives. So let me help you with that…
Downloading and backing up your photos
To back your photos up you’ll first need to download the high resolution versions of the photos from your online gallery. You can do this by following the steps outlined below.
- Open the link to the gallery that I have sent you.
- Under the main gallery photo you’ll see icons on the right hand side of the gallery. The arrow that points downward is the download icon (circled in red).
- Click the download icon and choose to Download Full Gallery – High Res. Do this for web size too if you want to post photos to social media. The full sized photos will look awful if you post them because of the way Facebook compresses them.
- You can then choose to download photos to your computer, Google Drive or Dropbox. Choose whichever one works best for you, but I do suggest at least storing them in two places.
- Once you have all of your photos downloaded make another copy of them and keep them somewhere safe. I suggest keeping at least one copy of all photos on an external hard drive or USB and keeping that somewhere away from the other copy. This means that if something happens to the original copy (hard drive crash, fire, flood, puppy that likes to chew stuff) you’ll still have another copy that is safe. Storing them in the cloud (Goolge Drive, Dropbox, etc) is also a great idea.
Sharing your gallery with your family and friends
Ok, now that your photos are safe you probably want to get the gallery out there into the hands of your friends and families. But first, there are a couple of things to know:
- You, your vendors, and all of your guests get free access to the web-sized downloads that are included in your gallery. If your guests want to download high-res copies of their photos or prints they can do that through the store that is included in your gallery. High-res downloads for guests are $5, and are large enough to print poster-sized, should they so desire. Yourself and your vendors get free access to the high-res downloads.
- Within your gallery you have the option of hiding any photos that you don’t want seen. Maybe you opted for running around in your underwear before you got dressed but realize now that your grandma doesn’t need to see that. You can hide those photos in your gallery by clicking the eyeball icon that appears when you hover your cursor over a photo (or click on it).
- The best way to share your gallery with your family and friends is through the Share option within your gallery (duh, right?). This ensures that any hidden photos will stay hidden, and also allows you to choose to send the whole gallery, individual photos, or just your favourites. You can find the share option under the main gallery photo (highlighted in red below).
- Once you’re there you’ll see a variety of ways to share your gallery. You can email individual photos, share photos on Facebook, or share a guest link with them. It’s up to you!
Feel that paper (aka, order some prints)
Cramming 15 people in front of your iPad to swipe through photos will never compare to the feeling of flipping through the pages of your wedding album or surprising your guests with a print of their family stuffed into a Thank You card. Nostalgia, my friends, is a powerful thing.
Your photos deserve to be cherished (they were an investment after all), and nothing brings life back into those moments quite like holding them in your hands and retelling yourself the story of the day you married your best friend. But, you’re also busy, and there are a lot of bad photo printing companies out there that will give you sub-par quality. That’s why your online gallery features a print store which allows you to order prints, albums, calendars, and so many other items that you can gift to your guests (and to yourselves). The prints from come from top of the line photo printing companies so your products will be as beautiful as your wedding was, and any issues will be resolved quickly and without fuss. Plus, you don’t have to leave your house, they get shipped right to you!
If you’re not sure what to order or want help designing an album I’d be happy to help, so feel free to ask. And remember, your gallery only stays up for a year, so make sure to order those prints before the gallery expires!
