Wedding guest camera: what it is, how it works, how to choose
A wedding guest camera is a shared camera your guests reach from their own phones, usually by scanning a QR code on the table. What they take goes to the couple rather than staying on forty separate camera rolls.
This page explains what the category is, what happens when a guest scans, and where it is and is not the right answer. It names the alternatives, the other QR apps included, so you can go and read them yourself.
What a wedding guest camera is
It is not a device. It is a way of pointing every phone already at the wedding at one place. The couple makes one link, puts a QR code where guests are, and whatever guests send lands in one album instead of in forty camera rolls, three group chats and a hashtag nobody used after 9pm.
The category exists because the photos guests take are the ones the photographer cannot: the table before the speeches, the face of the person watching the first dance, the bit at 1am. Those are worth collecting, and until someone collects them, they are simply lost.
How the QR flow works
A guest scans the code with their phone camera and a page opens in their browser. There is nothing to install and no account to make. They take a photo, record a short film or leave a voice note, and send it. That is the whole flow.
On an iPhone in Safari, Gooya also offers an App Clip: a piece of the app that opens without an install. It is optional. On Android, and in any in-app browser, the same guest page opens in the browser.
What Gooya holds, exactly
- A free event admits up to 10 guests. A paid package lifts that cap off the event entirely.
- A free event's album holds 50 photos, films and voice notes together, in one pool.
- A paid event's album holds 500 photos and films, and the server refuses past that number rather than dropping anything quietly.
- One photo can be up to 50 MB, one film up to 1.5 GB and 5 minutes, one voice note up to 25 MB.
How long the photos stay
The album stays open for a window after the event ends, and the window is the package: one week on a free event, 3 months on The Event, 1 year on The Keepsake. A Vault subscription keeps every album of yours open for as long as you hold it.
Past that window the album locks rather than empties. The files are kept; the host unlocks the album to open it again. Nothing is deleted at the end of a window.
The alternatives, named
Four things solve some version of this problem. Which one is right depends on the wedding, not on the marketing.
- Disposable cameras. Each camera has a fixed number of frames, the film is developed after the day, and there is no video and no sound.
- A shared iCloud or Google Photos album. No cost, and no setup at all if every guest is on the same platform and already signed in. Guests who are not sign in or make an account first, and everyone in the album can see what is in it.
- POV is another QR guest camera; we have not used it, so read their own page rather than our summary.
- Guestpix is another QR guest camera; we have not used it, so read their own page rather than our summary.
How to choose
- If your guests span iPhone and Android and you do not want anyone installing anything, pick whatever opens in a plain browser.
- If you want voice as well as pictures, check that voice is part of the same flow and not a second product.
- Ask what the album holds and how long it is kept, in numbers. Both should be written down somewhere you can point at.
- Ask who can see what guests send. An album everyone can browse and an album only the couple holds are different products.
- If the wedding is over and you now just need to get the photos to people, you do not need an event at all — a private album shared with a link and a PIN does that.
How to set up a wedding guest camera
The four steps between deciding to do this and guests sending photos, with Gooya or with any tool shaped like it.
Step 1
Make the event
Give it a name and a date. That produces one link for your guests and one QR code that points at it.
Step 2
Put the QR code where guests are
On the tables, at the bar, on the order of service. Somewhere a phone is already out.
Step 3
Guests scan and send
The code opens a page in the guest's browser. They take a photo, record a short film or leave a voice note, and send it. There is nothing to install and no account to make.
Step 4
Send the album when you are ready
Guests cannot see the album until you send it. When you do, everyone who was there gets the link, and you can send it to anyone else from the same place.
Questions people ask next
Do my guests need an app?
No. The QR code opens a page in the guest's phone browser and they send from there, with nothing to install and no account to make. On an iPhone in Safari an App Clip is offered as an alternative, and it is optional.
Does it work on Android?
Yes. Android guests use the browser page, which is the same page everyone else uses. The App Clip is an iPhone-only extra and nothing depends on it.
How many guests can send photos?
A free event admits up to 10 distinct guests. A paid package lifts the guest cap off the event.
How long are the photos kept?
The album stays open for a window after the event ends — one week on a free event, 3 months on The Event, 1 year on The Keepsake — and a Vault subscription keeps it open for as long as you hold it. Past the window the album locks rather than empties: the files are kept and the host unlocks it to reopen it.