Scan the card, give a name, send the photographs
Twenty seconds from a locked phone to a file in somebody's collection. There is nothing to install, nothing to sign up for and nothing to pay, and this page walks through the whole thing — including what to do when the venue's signal is the problem.
You are holding the photograph already. That is the whole premise: the best picture of the evening is on the phone of a person who was standing next to it, and the only thing standing between that picture and the host is a way to hand it over that takes less time than retyping a message.
So the guest page asks for almost nothing. Point a camera at the card on the table, or tap the link the host sent, and your normal browser opens on the collection — the names, the occasion, the date, and a small number of choices.
The four things the page offers
- Add photos and videos
- The reason the card exists. Choose files from your library, or take a new photograph straight from the page.
- Browse the gallery
- Everything other guests have sent, if the host opened it. Some hosts keep the page upload-only so nobody sees a picture of themselves before they are ready.
- Leave a message
- A line for the guestbook: written, filmed or recorded, depending on what the host has switched on.
- Remind me later
- You have photographs on a different device, or you are in the middle of a speech. Leave your address and one mail arrives when the collection has something worth opening. One reminder per address, and it goes quiet if the event ends first.
The two lines it asks for
Your name and your email address. That is the entire registration — there is no password, no confirmation link, no app store and no plan to choose. Your name appears beside your photographs when the host reviews them, and in the gallery too if the host has chosen to show contributors.
You give those once. On the same phone for the next twelve hours the sheet says "You're sending as" with your name beside it instead of asking again, which is what you want when you send the ceremony at half past three and the dance floor at midnight. "Not you? Change" brings the fields back for a borrowed phone, for a partner who sent the cake and now wants to send the speeches under their own name, or for a spelling you got wrong in a hurry.
The email address is not a receipt and not a newsletter. It is how a host attaches a thank-you, and how the collection reaches you again if the photographs are wanted for something later. Anything a host sends goes through their own name, not ours.
Choosing files is the part that takes a decision
Pick as many as you like in one go
The library opens and takes a multi-selection. Twenty files chosen in one gesture is normal, and the queue handles them as one job rather than twenty taps.
The upload starts on the first pick
There is no submit button to find. A queue appears, counts the files, and shows each one moving. "Add more" sits beside it for the second set you remember while the first one is going up.
Write a line if you want to
A short caption travels with the file, and a group name keeps several photographs together as one moment. Both are optional, and the host sees them beside the picture.
It says the photographs were received
The sheet confirms what landed. Anything the host has chosen to look at first goes to them before it reaches the shared page.
The queue waits for the two lines rather than failing
If you choose files before filling in your name, nothing is thrown away. The upload holds and starts moving the moment the two fields are complete.
Plain answers to the other guest questionsWhen the venue's signal is the problem
Marquees, cellars and barns are bad at this, and the flow assumes so. Files are held in your browser and retried with backoff. You can close the sheet, look at the gallery, or leave the page entirely and the uploads keep going. If the connection drops out, they resume when the phone finds signal again, and anything that genuinely gave up is marked so you can press "Retry failed" rather than starting over and re-choosing forty photographs.
- Turn the venue's Wi-Fi off and send over your mobile connection — usually the fastest fix available in a full room
- Leave the page open until the count stops moving, rather than force-closing the browser
- Send the clips later from a better connection; the photographs first
- Press "Retry failed" once, not four times — each press resumes the files that stalled, it does not restart them
Nothing you selected is lost when the network is the problem. A failed upload shows as failed; it does not quietly disappear from the list.
What you can send
Photographs in the formats a phone actually produces: JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF, and HEIC or HEIF straight out of an iPhone — nothing to convert, nothing to re-save. Video in MP4, M4V, MOV and WebM, where the host allows it.
There is a ceiling on a single file and it is the same whichever package the host chose: 15 MB for a photograph and 100 MB for a clip. A file over the line is refused with a clear sentence, not a spinner. The useful response is to save a smaller copy of it and send that instead.
Nothing is squeezed on the way in. The file that reaches the host is the file your camera wrote, at full resolution, with the date it was taken still attached to it — which is why a collection of six hundred photographs sorts itself into the right order afterwards instead of the order you happened to send them.
The sentences the page can show you
- This collection is not open yet
- The host is still setting things up, or has not opened the collection yet. The same link goes straight to the upload page when it opens, so the card in your pocket is not wasted.
- Uploads have closed
- The collection no longer takes new files. The gallery beside it still shows what came in, and the host keeps their own copy elsewhere.
- This collection is on hold
- The host or the site paused it. Ask the host: a payment or a query about a file is usually the reason, and it clears quickly.
- This collection has filled up
- The package reached its allowance. The host can raise it, and the same link works again afterwards.
- Uploads are paused by the hosts
- A switch rather than a limit — video, or photographs, is turned off. Tell the host if you are sure they want what you are holding.
- We cannot find that collection
- The address is not one that exists. Usually a mistyped address, or a photographed code at a low angle that the camera misread. Type it slowly, or ask the host for the link.
What happens to your photographs
They sit in one collection belonging to one host, behind an address that is not guessable and is not in any search index. Nothing is posted to a social network, nothing is public, and nobody at the venue can see your camera roll or the photographs you did not choose. The host can download them, and the collection has a stated date after which the site stops holding them — at which point the only copies are the host's and yours.
Guest questions, answered in the open
Do I need an app or an account?
Neither. Your normal browser opens on the collection, you give a name and an address, and the photographs go up. That is the whole interaction, and it is the reason a guest who would never install anything still sends their pictures.
Can the host see the rest of my camera roll?
No. A browser can only hand over files you selected through the picker. Nothing else on your phone is reachable from that page, which is also why a shared or borrowed phone is safe to use.
Will my photographs lose quality?
Not through this page. There is no compression step between your camera and the collection, which is the difference from sending the same file through a messaging app twice.
Can I delete something I sent?
Tell the host. A guest page does not hold a delete button, because the photograph is in somebody else's collection now, and the honest version is that they decide what stays. Ask and they can remove it, and the file stops appearing on the shared page.
The camera on my iPhone will not open from the page
Settings, then Safari, then Camera, set to Ask or Allow. Or take the shot in your camera app as normal and use the file picker instead — it arrives the same way.
One card on the table is the whole installation
There is nothing for your guests to prepare, download or remember. The card is the instruction, and the collection is what they land on.
How it works
From the invitation to the morning after
Nothing here needs an app, an account or a card. Guests give a name once and send their files.
Something this page does not answer? Write to support@candidphotos.myjoyfullday.com.