Wedding photo sharing etiquette for guests: what to post, when and how to credit

The etiquette for sharing wedding photos as a guest comes down to 5 rules. Let the couple post the professional photos first. Credit the photographer by name in the caption every time. Use the gallery’s download button, not a screenshot. Post only photos you are in or that the couple has already shared. Keep the gallery link and password to yourself unless the couple says otherwise. Everything else on this page is detail.

Who posts first

The couple. The professional gallery usually arrives weeks after the wedding and the couple has been waiting for it. Their first post of their own wedding photos should not come after yours. Wait until they have posted, or ask them. “Can I post a couple of the photos from the gallery?” takes 10 seconds and removes all doubt.

Two exceptions. If the couple shared a hashtag and asked guests to post, phone photos from the day are fair to post the same night. And if the couple or the photographer has already posted a sneak peek, re-sharing that post (rather than re-uploading the photo) is fine.

What to post

Your own phone photos from the day are yours to post, unless the ceremony was unplugged. An unplugged ceremony means no phones during the ceremony, and posting a photo you took during it tells everyone you ignored the request. Reception photos are usually fine. If you are unsure what was asked, the wording photographers use is in unplugged ceremony announcement scripts.

Photos from the professional gallery are the couple’s to share first. Once they have, posting the ones you appear in is normal. Posting the couple’s portraits, the first look, the getting-ready photos or any photo of a private moment is not your call. Neither is posting photos of other guests’ children.

Photos the couple has hidden are hidden on purpose. Some galleries let the couple hide photos from guests. If a photo you saw last week is gone, do not ask for it, and do not post a screenshot you took earlier.

How to credit the photographer

Credit means the photographer’s name or studio name in the caption, written out, plus a tag if you know their handle. A tag alone can be missed and disappears if the photographer changes their handle. Something like:

Photo: Studio Name (@studiohandle)

Three things count as failing to credit even when you meant well:

• Cropping out a watermark. If the photographer put a mark on the web-size file, it stays.
• Adding a filter. The photo was edited by a professional. A filter on top changes their work and then attaches their name to the result.
• Posting a screenshot. It is a low-quality copy with the interface edges cut off. Use the download button, pick web size, and post that. The steps are in how to save wedding gallery photos to your phone.

The link and the password

A gallery link sent to you is for you. Forwarding it to your partner or your parents is usually fine if the couple sent it to the whole family. Posting it on social media, in a group chat with people who were not invited, or on a public page is not. If the gallery has a password, treat it like the password to anything else: do not put it in a public post.

Many galleries ask for your email before they open. That is not a trick. It tells the photographer and the couple who has looked, keeps your favorites attached to you, and is part of how the photographer keeps the gallery private. Use your real email.

Copyright, in plain terms

In the US the photographer owns the copyright to the photos they took, from the moment they took them, unless a contract says otherwise. The couple has a license to use the photos personally: download them, print them, share them. Guests sharing a few photos on their own social accounts, with credit, is the kind of personal use nobody objects to.

What crosses the line: selling the photos, using them in advertising, submitting them to a publication as your own, or a vendor using them to promote a business without the photographer’s permission. Vendors who worked the wedding should ask the photographer for images. There is a proper way to get them, described in sharing wedding photos with vendors.

Do and do not

Do	Do not
Wait for the couple to post first	Post gallery photos the night the link arrives
Write the photographer’s name in the caption	Rely on a tag alone, or skip credit because everyone knows who shot it
Download at web size and post that	Screenshot the gallery
Post photos you are in	Post the couple’s portraits or private moments before they do
Forward the link to close family if the couple sent it to family	Post the link or password anywhere public
Ask if unsure	Assume

A 20-second check before posting

1. Has the couple posted professional photos yet?
2. Am I in this photo, or has the couple already shared it?
3. Is the photographer’s name in my caption?
4. Is this the downloaded file, not a screenshot, with no filter and no cropped watermark?
5. Would the couple be happy to see this on my feed?

Five yeses, post it. One no, message the couple first.

How this works in a FOCL gallery

In FOCL Galleries, the photographer can mark photos as Couple only, which means they are shown only to someone who enters one of the couple’s email addresses and so do not appear in an ordinary guest’s view. A photo that is hidden, by the photographer or by the couple using Couple Controls, is not shown to anyone at all. Either way, if a photo is not in your view of the gallery, it was not meant to be. Guests mark favorites with a heart, and the first favorite asks for an email so the list follows you across devices. Galleries are never indexed by search engines, so the only way in is the link the couple chose to share. How the couple shares with parents and grandparents is covered in how to share wedding photos with parents and family.