A few years back (years!!! boy does the time fly by!), I shared how I used my FLICKR account to gather photos from guests at our wedding. However, many people on Weddingbee expressed hesitations about handing out their account name and password, or running the risk of an evil guest “accidentally” deleting the album or getting confused about how to upload their photos. Back then, there were very few options for gathering and downloading full size photos from our guests, and this just happened to work extremely well for us.
Fast forward to 2010 and I was asked to replicate my efforts on behalf of my MOH’s wedding this past May. While I knew exactly what to do with FLICKR, I decided to investigate and see if a “better way” had come along in three years. First, I started a “share site” with Shutterfly, but that idea only lasted a few minutes, as I learned that anyone who needed to upload photos had to join as a member. I know some people are comfortable with joining sites on a whim, but I also know plenty of others who will refuse to sign up for anything. So I went back to square one and came across the service I actually ended up using: irave.com.
- I was the only one who needed to sign-up as a member of the site.
- Guests could either email the photos or upload them directly to a website.
- I could create a really simple web address for the photo album.
- Downloading all of the photos cost $10. (as opposed to $25 for a FLICKR site) And if you happen to get bad photos, or no photos at all from guests… you don’t have to buy any download credits!
So how easy is it to create an account? Really quite simple actually! Just sign up for an account with your information, verify the link you are sent via email, and then login to create your first album. You’re then given the email address and web address that you’ll be able to share with others. Just put those on a card… hand it out to your guests… and wait for the photos to come trickling in!
But instead of simply telling you how easy it is to do, I figured I’d set-up a sample site that you can try out and see if this is the right choice for you and your guests. Here’s a photo of the cards that I created for my MOH Audrey’s wedding (but with my information subbed in):
Go ahead and try it out! Email a photo to weddingbee@mrslemon.irave.com and see it pop up there… or go to the site (http://mrslemon.irave.com/Weddingbee) and try uploading a photo as well! And if it seems easy enough for your guests to handle… then maybe it’s the right option for collecting digital photos from your guests!
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