Sharing wedding photos with vendors: what to send, credit and usage

Send each vendor a small, edited selection that shows their own work, a week or two after the couple has their gallery, with a written credit request and two lines on what they may do with the photos. Do not send the couple’s gallery link. The planner gets the biggest set, everyone else gets 20 to 40 photos, and nobody gets RAW files or unedited frames.

Vendors are the best referral source most wedding photographers have. A planner who gets clean, fast, well-credited photos of their work after every wedding will put you in front of couples for years. That only happens if sharing is easy for you and useful for them.

Who gets what

Each vendor wants photos of the thing they made. A florist does not need the first dance. A DJ does not need the bouquet.

Vendor	What they want	How many (rule of thumb)
Planner or coordinator	The whole day in outline: details, ceremony, reception room, key moments, a few portraits	60 to 80
Venue	Exteriors, the ceremony site set up, the reception room before guests, wide shots with people	20 to 40
Florist	Bouquets, boutonnieres, arch or chuppah, centerpieces, cake flowers, installations	20 to 40
Hair and makeup	Getting-ready portraits, close-ups, the finished look before the ceremony	10 to 20
Caterer or baker	The cake, the cake cutting, plated food, dessert table, bar	10 to 20
Attire	Full-length portraits, dress and suit details, shoes, the back of the dress	10 to 20
DJ or band	The dance floor, the band on stage, lighting, the crowd	10 to 20
Officiant, stationer, rentals, lighting	Only the frames that show their work	5 to 15

The planner’s set is bigger because the planner made the whole day, and because the planner is the one who submits to publications and posts full features.

What to send

Send finished JPEGs from the same edit the couple received. Web-size files, around 2048 px on the long edge, are enough for social media and for most websites. Offer high resolution on request for print portfolios and publication submissions, and send it only when asked.

Never send RAW files, unedited frames, or the outtakes you cut from the gallery. A vendor posting a frame you rejected is your name on a photo you did not want anyone to see. The same applies to photos the couple asked you to keep private, and to any photo of a guest who did not want to be photographed. Ask about both before the day; the questions are in what to ask in a pre-wedding questionnaire.

Watermarks are a judgment call. Most photographers skip them on vendor sets, because a watermark in the corner gets cropped out anyway and a good vendor credits properly. If you do watermark, keep it small and put your credit request in writing so the credit does not depend on the watermark surviving. There is more on that trade-off in should you watermark wedding photos.

Credit

Ask for credit every time, in the same email as the photos, in one sentence. Vendors are not being rude when they forget; they are posting from a phone on a Tuesday and your name is not in front of them. Make it easy.

• Give them the exact credit line: “Photo: Your Studio Name” for websites, and your handle for Instagram.
• Ask for a tag in the photo and in the caption. A tag in the photo alone does not show in the caption; a caption mention alone does not link.
• Ask the planner to include your name in any publication submission, with the same spelling.

If a vendor posts without credit, message them once, politely, with the credit line. Almost everyone fixes it. If the same vendor does it twice, stop sending them photos.

Usage: what to allow and what to ask about

Put your terms in two lines. Long licensing paragraphs go unread and make the vendor feel like they are being sued. A short, clear note gets followed.

Use	Allow it	Ask first
Their social media accounts, with credit	Yes
Their website portfolio, with credit	Yes
Printed portfolio, sample album	Yes
Submission to a blog or magazine		Yes, and coordinate so it is submitted once
Paid advertising, billboards, trade-show banners		Yes, and consider a fee
Selling the photos, passing them to another vendor		No
Heavy cropping, filters, re-editing		Ask them not to

Before any of this, check your own contract with the couple. Most photography contracts allow the photographer to share images for promotion, and vendor sharing falls under that, but some couples negotiate a privacy clause. If the couple asked for no social media, that applies to your vendors too, and you should tell the vendors why the set is smaller or missing.

How not to hand over the whole gallery

The fastest way to share is to forward the couple’s gallery link. It is also the wrong way. The couple’s gallery has the whole day in it, including photos of guests, photos the couple hid, and a download button that gives the vendor 700 files they will never sort. Once that link is out you cannot take it back, and if the couple set a password or a download PIN, you have just given it away.

Better options, in order of effort:

1. A shared set. Pick the photos, generate a link that shows only those, with your branding on it. In FOCL Galleries this is the Shared sets feature: the vendor downloads singly or as one ZIP, couple-only photos are never included, and you can turn the link off later. The steps are in share with a vendor.
2. A separate small gallery with only the vendor photos in it, no password, downloads on. More setup per vendor, but it works on any gallery platform.
3. A file-transfer link from a cloud drive. Works, expires, gives you no branding and no record of who downloaded what.

Timing

Send vendor sets after the couple has their gallery, never before. The couple should see their photos first. The exception is sneak peeks: if the couple agreed, the planner can have 3 to 5 sneak peeks in the first week so they can post while the wedding is fresh. See sneak peeks: when and how many.

A practical rhythm is to build the vendor sets during the final pass of the edit, when the photos are in front of you anyway, and to send them all on the same day as the couple’s delivery email or within a week of it. A vendor set that arrives 4 months later is rarely posted.

The email

Keep it short. Something like this covers everything:

“Hi Dana, here are the photos of your flowers from Sam and Alex’s wedding. You are welcome to use them on your social accounts and website with the credit ‘Photo: Your Studio Name’ and a tag to @yourhandle. Please ask before using them in paid ads or submitting them anywhere, so we do not double-submit. Thanks for a beautiful day.”

Then the link. Keep a list of who you sent what to. A vendor contact sheet built before the wedding gives you the addresses and saves you asking the planner afterwards.

When to say no

Say no when a vendor asks for the full gallery, when they want the photos for an ad campaign without a conversation about a fee, when the couple asked for privacy, or when the vendor has posted your work without credit before. Say it plainly and offer the smaller thing you are happy to do. Most vendors ask for the full gallery because nobody offered them a curated set, and they take the set gladly.