27 original photo ideas for your guests

The best wedding photos aren't always the posed ones. They're the spontaneous ones, the ones that happen when nobody's warned. Here are 27 ideas for photos with your guests —some for the photographer, many that your guests themselves can capture— and, at the end, the trick to making sure none get lost.

The group photos (with everyone at once)

Gathering everyone into a single photo is hard, but there are ways to make it come out well.

• An aerial drone shot, forming a heart or the couple's initials.
• Everyone jumping at once on a cue.
• Everyone throwing something into the air: petals, confetti, or the napkins.
• The shot from a balcony or a staircase, with everyone looking up.
• The sparkler tunnel at the send-off, with guests on either side.
• A photo with each group of friends separately, before the night mixes them together.

Table by table

The table-by-table round is a classic, but it can be made far more memorable.

• Going around each table with a funny sign held by the couple.
• Leaving an object on each table that gets passed from hand to hand (a hat, a fake mustache).
• Asking each table for a “team” photo, as if they were a band.
• A photo of all the tables toasting at once.

The dance floor and the night

When the lights go down, the best photos show up, with that direct-flash texture everyone loves.

• The direct flash out on the dance floor: the quintessential single-use camera look.
• The blurry, half-shaken shot of someone dancing: imperfect and perfect.
• The first dance captured from the guests, not from the photographer.
• Group selfies at three in the morning.
• The sparkler moment, with the sparks drawing lines.
• The midnight group hug, everyone squeezed into a single photo.

The details and the small moments

The photographer covers the big moments; these small ones slip past.

• The hands with the newly placed rings.
• A relative's moved face during the vows.
• The kids playing under the tables, oblivious to everything.
• The spontaneous toast nobody planned.
• The cake, right before the first cut.
• The bouquet, in the exact second before it's thrown.
• The glances between the couple when they think no one is watching.

Games and props

Give your guests an excuse to take photos, and they will.

• A homemade photo corner with a backdrop and props (hats, clown noses, signs).
• Signs with phrases to hold up: “Long live the newlyweds!”, “Finally.”
• A list of photo challenges for the guests: “someone crying with laughter,” “a toast,” “the bride's shoes,” “someone dancing alone.” It turns the photos into a game.
• A shared album where all these photos end up together, in one place.

The trick that multiplies all these ideas

Almost all of these photos happen in parallel, away from the photographer, in your guests' hands. The way to make sure none get lost is to let them capture the photos themselves, and to have everything end up in the same place.

That's exactly what a digital single-use camera like lume does: each guest scans a QR, takes a limited roll of photos during the party, and at the end an album is revealed with everything, from every angle. The “challenge list” idea works wonderfully with the limited roll: when each photo counts, people choose better.

If you want to see all the ways to gather those photos into a single album, we compare them in this article.

27 ideas, and they all have something in common: the best ones are taken by the people living the day. Give them the way to capture them. See how it works on the weddings page, and the pricing —you start free for up to five guests.