A week, six months, a year, two years — and a date printed on day one
No collection stays open past its date, and that is the honest version of the promise. What you get instead is a period chosen before the event, stated on the dashboard, warned about a week early, and followed by a download link.
A site that keeps your photographs forever has one of two answers behind it: either you are paying a storage bill every month for a decade, or the files are quietly at the mercy of a company's balance sheet. A collection takes neither route. It holds your files for a period you chose, tells you the last day of it from the first, and hands everything back before it goes.
The four periods
- Seven days, free
- Enough for a test event and for the room to see what came in. Not enough to survive a print order, which is the reason the free package is a rehearsal rather than a record.
- Six months, $19
- Covers a birthday or a graduation from the evening itself through the photographs being sent round to the family who were not there, and outlives every reasonable excuse for not downloading.
- Twelve months, $39
- A year is the wedding period: the evening, the thank-you notes, the framed print in month three, the first anniversary in month twelve.
- Two years, $69
- For an event that is going into something printed later, or a family that wants the collection reachable while the children are still asking about it.
The clock starts when the collection opens
Not on the day of the event, and not on the day you paid. That has one practical consequence: a collection opened three months early loses three months of its retention, and the printed date is still the printed date. The remedy is simple and worth doing — open the collection close to the occasion, and use the settings screen rather than the calendar to decide when.
The other consequence is a good one. Files stay reachable through the whole period whether or not the event is over, so a guest who finds a card in a coat pocket in February can still see the collection, and a host who wants to show the gallery to a relative abroad has a year to do it in rather than a weekend.
Buying more time
Six extra months for $9, twelve for $15, bought on the package screen while the collection is still open. The extension starts when the included period ends, not on the day you pay — so an evening in June, on a twelve-month package, extended in July, still reads until June of the second year and then keeps going.
- Before the invitations go out, when the period is a line in a price rather than an emergency
- In the week the warning mail arrives, when you can see whether you are going to need the archive printed before it closes
- Not on the deletion date itself, when there is nothing left to extend
There is no subscription and nothing renews. An extension is one purchase attached to one collection, and the site does not ask you again.
What happens when the period ends
About a week out
One mail, three dates
The message says the collection stops taking uploads on a named day, and inside it are the date the gallery stays readable until and the date the files are deleted. Nothing about the end is left to be discovered.
Uploads close
The page keeps reading
Guests who arrive afterwards are told uploads have closed, and can still browse what came in. The download link on your dashboard works exactly as it did that morning.
The day after
Files deleted
The photographs, the clips and the guestbook leave the site. There is no recovery, by you or by us, and a ZIP built after this point comes out empty.
A month past expiry
The record goes
The collection leaves your dashboard, so an account does not fill with evenings from years ago. On a paid package, deleting a collection early also frees its place.
The download is the archive
Take the whole collection the morning after the event, and keep a second copy somewhere else. The site is a temporary home with a stated end, which is what makes the end date a promise rather than a threat.
How to take the archiveRetention questions
Why not keep files forever?
Because a promise to hold other people's wedding photographs indefinitely is a promise that depends on the site existing indefinitely, and on a storage bill nobody stopped paying. A stated period, a warning and a working download are the parts that can actually be guaranteed.
Does the period include the event itself?
Yes. A collection on a six-month package that opens a week before the event still holds everything for the same period after it; the day the photographs were taken is inside the window, not beside it.
What if I need more time after the warning mail?
Buy an extension while the collection is still open, and take the download anyway. An extension keeps the address alive; the download is the only copy that depends on nothing.
Do photographs and clips expire together?
They are held in one collection and removed in one action. There is no way to keep the films for a year and the stills for two, which would make the printed closing date two dates and a worse promise.
Is the deletion date ever moved by itself?
No. It comes from the package and any extensions you bought, and it is printed on the dashboard. A collection placed on hold for an unpaid invoice behaves differently — the hold pauses the flow rather than spending the period — and is settled by writing to us.
Choose the period at the same time as you choose the ceiling
Retention is a line on the package screen, priced with the file counts, and stated as a date the moment the collection opens.
Packages
One price for the collection, chosen before the invitations go out
Every package carries the guest link, the printable stands and the private gallery. Guests never pay and never register.
Something this page does not answer? Write to support@candidphotos.myjoyfullday.com.