What to do with your wedding photos

Receiving your final wedding photos is exciting, and it’s only the beginning! Your photos are the tangible record of one of the biggest days of your life, and how you handle them in the weeks after delivery will determine whether they become treasured family heirlooms or just another digital folder that gets forgotten.

This guide walks you through exactly what to do (and what not to do!) when your gallery arrives: how to download and back up your images safely, which files to print and why, how to order an album, what to know about sharing on social media, and the practical deadlines you need to keep in mind. Read this immediately when your gallery arrives — it will save you stress later.

Make sure you create something tangible – after all, this is your first family heirloom. The best time to do this is within the first few months after the wedding, while excitement is still high. Otherwise, it gets so far down the to-do list with new jobs, babies arriving, home purchases and moves – and will never be done. Preserving your wedding photos is an important task, so ensure it receives the care and attention it deserves! 

Immediate steps when your gallery arrives

Consider hosting a viewing party 

Viewing your wedding gallery for the first time is a once-in-a-lifetime experience – just like your wedding day! You get to experience all the fun for the second time, a couple of months after the big day. 

Instead of clicking the link right away just to make sure the photos “came out,” make it special. 

Gather a few close friends and family, and turn it into a viewing party. Pour a drink, share a meal, and relive the day together. 

I can’t tell you how many couples end up seeing their wedding photos for the first time while sneaking a scroll on their phone during a bathroom break at work — and that moment deserves so much more. 

Even if you keep it simple, like curling up on the couch with your partner and a bottle of something while watching on the big screen, the joy of experiencing your gallery together is something you’ll never forget.

Download, download, download!

On the top right hand corner of your gallery’s homepage, you’ll see a “download” icon (an arrow pointing down). 

You’ll then need to select all the photo ‘sets’ that you’d like to download – don’t forget to check all the boxes to ensure you have include all your wedding photos.

You’ll be asked to enter an email address. This is also where the download link is sent. Ensure it’s an address you control (avoid using a throwaway or including typos in the address).

Choose the highest resolution (always).

My galleries are delivered with full-size, high-resolution JPEGs by default. Please note: all the photos shared with you are already in full, highest resolution. I used to offer two download options — full resolution or web resolution — but I’ve switched off the ability to choose. Too many people were accidentally saving the smaller web versions and unknowingly relying on those as their only long-term archive. That risk isn’t worth it. Now, only full-size downloads are possible, so your archival copies are always safe.

If you would still like access to smaller, web-size files, just let me know, and I can toggle that option on for your gallery. These days, though, every major social platform automatically compresses larger files, so you no longer need to manually resize for social sharing. That said, if you prefer the convenience of smaller downloads for phone viewing or sharing, I’m happy to enable it on request.

Share the gallery link with loved ones

While the excitement is still fresh, now is the best time to share your gallery with family and friends via email – you can easily forward your delivery email. 

Not only does this let everyone relive the day while it’s still vivid in their minds, but it also gives your guests the chance to find photos of themselves — whether that’s their reaction during the ceremony, their family groupings, or those candid little in-between moments.

I’ve always believed that wedding photos shouldn’t be locked away. I spend hours capturing everyone present, not just the couple, and it feels like a missed opportunity when guests never get to see those images of themselves. Personally, I’ve attended weddings as a guest where the only photos I ever received afterward were a handful of compressed, low-quality shots in a Google album. They weren’t printable, weren’t savable in any meaningful way, and frankly weren’t much fun to look back on. I wanted to see the WHOLE event!

Your full gallery is designed to be shared. Instead of creating custom Google albums for each guest grouping/family, or painstakingly selecting which images to forward, why not just give people full access? 

That way, everyone can download the photos that matter to them and even print or archive them for their own memories. If the gallery doesn’t feel too intimate to share widely, consider passing along the entire link. It’s one of the simplest and most generous ways to spread the joy of your wedding day.

How to store and back up your wedding photos 

Backing up your photos is the most important thing you can do. Technology fails. Devices get stolen. Accounts expire. Do not rely on one copy.

Follow the 3-2-1 approach

• Keep 3 copies of your images.
• Store them on 2 different media types (for example: your computer + external hard drive).
• Keep 1 copy off-site (a second external drive at a relative’s house or cloud storage).

Practical backup steps I recommend:

1. Download your full-resolution folder to your computer and rename it clearly so you can easily search for it (e.g., Wedding — Date — Your Names).
   
2. Copy that folder to at least one external hard drive (WD, Seagate, SanDisk — these tend to be reputable brands).
   
3. Store a second physical backup off-site in case there’s ever a fire or flood (a family member’s house, your car, safe deposit box, etc.).
   
4. Add a cloud backup (Dropbox, Google Drive, Backblaze – use my Backblaze referral link for a bonus) as an extra level of protection. For ALL your backups, ensure they are full-resolution images (for example,  using Google Drive, not Google Photos).

If you want a simple setup, download the gallery directly to an external hard drive while it’s plugged into your computer. That avoids filling your laptop drive with huge files.

• ✅ Good ideas:
• Download the high-resolution JPEGs to your computer’s hard drive plus one external hard drive, plus a secondary hard drive or thumb drive
• Upload them to a secure cloud storage solution like Dropbox or Google Drive. I personally use Backblaze for my computer and external hard drive backups.
• Keep in mind a plan B for the future if you ever cancel a subscription or switch providers

❌ Not good ideas:

• Only downloading the “web res” images (too small to ever print — and this option is now turned off)
• Relying solely on Google Photos or other online galleries, which don’t preserve full data and may not be around forever
• Saving only to your phone or computer’s built-in hard drive (which then gets wiped when you upgrade)
• Waiting until after your gallery expires to download
• Forgetting to download at all. Once my business eventually winds down, there won’t be any way to reach us and recover your wedding photos

A note on file sizes and storage

High-resolution wedding galleries can take up a substantial amount of storage*. A dedicated drive to keep things organized is a good idea, especially as you switch out computers over the years. 

If you also worked with a professional videographer, you may have the full 4K footage from your wedding if you opted for all the raw footage, but even just the highlight reel can be massive! In addition, you might also want to collect photos and videos from your guests. All of this can easily add up to hundreds of gigabytes, depending on how many people captured moments and how much was recorded.

Keeping everything together on one large, dedicated drive makes it much easier to access, preserve, enjoy and pass down your complete set of wedding memories without them being scattered across multiple devices or platforms.

The more places your images live, the less likely you are to lose them in the event of one of those sources failing. External drives can be purchased inexpensively from Amazon, BestBuy or any retailer of your choice. Just make sure you get a reputable brand, such as Seagate, SanDisk, Samsung, Lexar, LaCie, or Western Digital (WD).

Here are a few I recommend, in different sizes!

Simply copy your wedding image files from your local computer drive to a new folder on your external drive. Or you can download the gallery directly to the external hard drive. You or your guests that you provide the download link to can download your wedding gallery as many times as you like, provided it’s still live.

*And yet, when you download your photos, you might notice the file size of each jpeg is smaller than you’d expect, compared to a jpeg from your phone. Does that mean the photo can only be printed in a tiny size, or is actually low resolution?

No! The files are manageable because I run them through professional compression software called JpegMini. This software strips out unnecessary file bloat from JPEGs without touching the quality.

The result: your images look exactly as they should, with no loss of quality. But the files are quicker to download, transfer, and send, and take up less storage space.

Ordering prints, wall art and albums 

Your final JPEGs are the archival files that are intended for printing. They’re processed and exported to print-ready standards. For more about your wedding deliverables include, check out my guide linked below:

There are definite benefits to ordering directly through me. The prints and albums you’ll receive are archival quality — designed to last 100 years or more when cared for properly. The paper, inks, and materials are all chosen to withstand fading, even if displayed in sunlight, so these keepsakes truly stand the test of time. 

Prints are finished with non-reflective glass for a fine art look, and albums are handcrafted with durable materials that feel fittingly special for something as significant as a wedding.

Another important distinction is color accuracy. The professional labs I work with don’t just run your photos through a machine — if something looks off during printing, they’ll make corrections to ensure the final product matches exactly what you see on your screen. That kind of calibration isn’t something you’ll get from consumer print labs, which often use cheaper papers and inks that can shift colors or degrade more quickly. 

When you order through me, you can feel confident that the quality matches the care that went into creating your photos in the first place.

That said, you’re never locked into using my services for printing. You, your family, and your guests are free to print albums and wall art wherever you prefer. My role is to provide a beautifully edited set of high-resolution images that can be used anywhere — whether you’d like the convenience of having me handle everything, or you’d rather explore other printing options on your own.

A few printing points worth knowing

• Conservatively, most final JPEGs from us print beautifully up to about 20 x 30 inches, given a close viewing distance.
• Uncropped images (those that don’t need additional framing/cropping) can often be printed even larger depending on composition and resolution.
• Your images are delivered in a 2:3 aspect ratio in most cases. If you want to avoid any automatic cropping, choose print sizes that match that ratio (for example 4 x 6, 8 x 12, 16 x 24). If you pick any frame size like 5 X 7 or 8 x 10, expect some crop. You’ll be able to adjust the crop to your liking within our gallery store software. Please note: some images where the subject is particularly close to the edge of the frame (for example so that the subject fills the frame), will not work in any aspect ratio except the original (2:3) ratio. 

Check out my dedicated article about aspect ratios:

What size prints?

You may want to consider larger prints if you plan to mount them on the wall. This is how an 8 X 10 without a mat looks above a couch. As you can see, it’s tiny and lacks visual impact, actually looking cheap.

If you’re not into super large prints where your face is super large in the frame, you might want to consider a wall collage with multiple framed prints. This works well for a variety of home settings, particularly for statement walls such as in the entryway, above the bed above the couch or mantlepiece. 

Below is a video showcasing an actual past client’s wall display – I think it looked amazing!

Print store (Pixieset)

Your final gallery link (not the sneak peek one) includes a print store where you can order archival-quality prints and wall art directly. You can access the print store from the gallery homepage:

or via the “Buy Photo” button on any single image, as shown below:

That will bring you to this screen where you’ll see the various options of products available with different tabs as well. In the example below, there are tabs for Prints, Wall Art and Cards. 

Albums (Pic-Time)

I use a professional album supplier available through Pic-Time. Albums are self-service and intuitive: Pic-Time provides auto-designed spreads as a starting point, and you can customize any layout yourself. The benefits of this approach:

• You pay less because you’re not paying for my time for album design.
• You have access to pro-grade materials not available to the public.
• You can design and tweak your album exactly as you like, with no design experience required. When you open the software, it provides an AI-generated spread that you can use as a starting point if you want. Here’s an example of what that looks like:

The system autosaves, lets you share your design with your partner, and has a built-in support chat if you get stuck.

Plan to order your album within a year if you can — per your contract, the gallery and sales portals are guaranteed to remain live for one year. I won’t be in business forever, so after that guaranteed period, there’s no promise the portals will still be available. That said, about two months before your one-year anniversary, a special discount code for your album may become available, allowing you to time your order to take advantage of it if you’d like to put your album together for your anniversary.

Note that album lead times can vary throughout the year. It’s strongly advised to avoid the holidays for print / album sales. 

This is what your album store will look like on entry. You’ll be able to select the product that you like, and there is no obligation to purchase anything at all if you just want to browse pricing and weigh your options:

Here’s more about the options that are currently available (though the options, production time and pricing are dynamic and are subject to the individual supplier that happens to be fulfilling that particular order – it is all automated, so I’m unable to pull out specifics):

The software that runs my album store is called Pic-Time. You can check in the address bar to see whether you’re in the print/wall art store (Pixieset) or the album store (Pic-Time), in case this is a little confusing.

What I store and for how long (RAWs, backups, archives)

I keep RAW files during the editing and delivery process as part of my workflow. RAWs are not distributed to clients — they are working files rather than finished images.

Practical notes

• RAW files are kept while I edit and deliver your gallery and for thereafter, but they are not part of your long-term delivery package.
• Final JPEGs are the archival product you receive and are what you should rely on for prints and albums.
• I maintain secure backups for a reasonable period, but you are responsible for downloading and storing your own copies. I recommend following the backup steps in this guide immediately after receiving your download link.
• If you request additional files or reworks, please do it within the 6-week window after delivery; after that I “close the file”. Retrieval from archive or RAWs may no longer be possible, especially the more time has passed since delivery.

If you request changes, retouching, or extra images

I intentionally overshoot, so that every key moment is captured. Our editor, Ella, works tirelessly to ensure that everything from your wedding in included, without duplication. If you believe there’s a moment missing, contact me right away. I ask that any such requests come within six weeks of gallery delivery, because eventually unused older files will have to be deleted to make way for new weddings. 

In most cases, the moment is already present (sometimes in a different folder or as a similar frame) and we can point you to it quickly.

Occasionally, an image may have been excluded because it would have required extensive compositing (for example, a complex head swap across multiple files). In some cases, we can revisit a specific frame, but complex rescues may carry an extra charge.

If you have a retouching request or would like a slightly different crop or tonal adjustment, please submit your request, preferably within six weeks. Minor tweaks are usually included or available for a modest fee. 

Major reconstructions (complex composites or full-image restorations) are possible but may require additional time and costs. I have a comprehensive guide linked below that provides details on retouching, including those additional fees.

Social sharing — please credit!

I love it when couples share their photos. If you post on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, or Pinterest, please tag me (@zoelarkinphoto across all platforms) and include “Photo: @zoelarkinphoto” or a similar phrase in the caption whenever possible. It helps my small business a lot.

A few social sharing requests:

• Please don’t heavily crop, filter, or alter the color/tones of the files. If you want a slightly different crop or tone, ask me — small re-edits are almost always possible.
• Feel free to combine my images with your phone photos in a reel or slideshow, but please credit the photographer.
• If you want to share an image to a large publication, please ask first – simply because usually the submission must be made by the photographer. Happy to collaborate though!

Vendor sharing, credits and tags

For all clients that did not opt for privacy around their wedding images, I share share your full gallery with your chosen vendors, because these relationships are the currency of our industry and help everyone involved so they’re also able to showcase the fruits of their labor. 

If you prefer not to have your vendors tagged or shared, please let me know before the wedding. If you have had a negative experience with a vendor and don’t want them to receive images, I will absolutely respect that and will not share or tag them. 

This is the guidance that vendors receive from me when I share the full gallery with them (linked below):

Please write a 5 ⭐️ review

For a small business like mine, where we personally invest so much into each couple, 5-star reviews really do make a difference.

I’ve put together a guide to make the process simple and quick:

In it, you’ll find templates, questions to answer, and tips to help you write a review that’s not only easy for you but also incredibly valuable for your photographer. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.

There are three main platforms I collect reviews:

Please follow the links above to leave a review, and feel free to copy and paste your review across the platforms you use. You’re also welcome to add some favorite photos!

Because wedding photographers work with so few clients each year compared to larger businesses that service hundreds or even thousands of clients, even one review that isn’t five stars can have a lasting impact. If you cannot give 5 stars, please get in touch, and I will do my best to remedy any issues. Your kind words help other couples find me and know what to expect 💖

Tell your friends and give a tip!

The best tip you can give is a referral — helping other couples find me is far more valuable than any cash. I want to be very clear: I never expect a tip for myself. So much so, I wrote another article specifically about wedding photographer tipping etiquette!

You should NEVER feel obligated to tip your wedding photographer, and tips are never expected. Consider it only if you feel your photographer truly went above and beyond in a way that blew you away, or if you have a flexible wedding budget. If you do wish to tip, my Venmo is @zoelarkin, last 4 digits 9939.

If you worked with an associate photographer, that’s the person who could receive a tip, since they are paid hourly. Again, you are never required to do so — it’s entirely optional. If you’d like to tip an associate, I can provide their Venmo directly so you’re assured it goes straight to them.

Once again, there’s NO obligation; I’m only adding this here because I’m asked about it from time to time by some clients after their wedding or even after final delivery, so I want to provide that information so your mind is at ease!

In summary: my final practical tips 

• Consider a viewing party — it’s fun and helps you decide what to print.
• After you’ve checked out the photos, immediately download and back up your gallery.
• Always download and store photos in the original quality. It’s fine to have them on Google Photos for easily swiping through on your phone and showing friends, but be sure this isn’t your archival version. 
• Make a plan to order at least one physical piece — some framed prints or an album — within the first year. It’s the best way to ensure your photos don’t stay digital-only. Life gets busy, and sometimes people don’t get around to printing them, which can result in losing them. 
• Tag the photographer when you post — it’s valued and appreciated.

If you’d like guidance on print sizes, album formats, or setting up a simple backup routine, I’m happy to help. This guide is intended to be practical — follow it, and your photos will be safe, accessible, and beautiful for years to come.

Enjoy reliving the day — and don’t let those images languish on a hard drive. They’re meant to be displayed, preserved, and passed down.

Zoe Larkin

I’m Zoe, a wedding photographer based in San Francisco! My style is candid, capturing authentic moments for my couples all over the Bay Area and Northern California. Creating content is my passion! Follow along on the blog, Instagram, TikTok & YouTube!

Zoe Larkin Photography