A wedding pictures QR code is a link your guests' phones can read. What matters is what the link opens, and there are three kinds. The first opens a shared album, usually Google Photos, and asks guests to add their pictures to it. The second opens an upload box on a company's website, where guests pick photos from their camera roll and send them. The third opens a camera, so guests take photos for the wedding rather than digging up ones they already have.
The first two collect what already exists on people's phones. That is fine as far as it goes, but it means the gallery is whatever guests decided to send, and most guests send a handful of pictures days later, if at all. The third kind changes the night itself. When the code opens a camera with a limited roll, guests look for shots worth taking, and they take them while the moment is happening.
Papped is the third kind. The code opens a camera in the phone browser with a counter showing how many shots are left. Guests can still add a photo from their camera roll if they want to, but it spends a shot from the same roll and goes through the same screening, so the gallery stays a record of the day rather than a dump of everyone's phone.
Creating the event takes about two minutes: the wedding's name, the date, and how many guests you expect. Weddings up to 5 guests are free with 5 shots each. Above that your guest count picks a plan, the price is shown on the form before you commit, and you pay once. On paid plans every guest gets a roll of 20 shots by default, and you can set anywhere from 5 to 100.
Connect your Google Drive. Papped asks for the narrowest permission Google offers: it can create a folder for the wedding and see the files it puts there, and nothing else in your Drive. Then launch. Until you launch, the event is a draft and there is no code yet. From the moment you launch, the camera works, so a guest who scans a card early can take a photo early. Most couples launch the week of the wedding, or launch earlier to get the poster printed and keep the cards until the day.
The moment you launch, the Overview tab shows the QR code, the join link and a Print your QR poster button that opens a print-ready page. The same poster arrives by email as a PDF, which is the easiest thing to forward to whoever is printing the stationery. The link and the code go to the same place, so a WhatsApp broadcast on the morning works as a backup for anyone who cannot scan.
The full step by step in the organizer guide
The poster Papped gives you is the simplest thing to print, and it works as a welcome sign on its own. For the tables, most couples put the code on a small card, the back of the menu or the place cards, using whatever stationery they are already printing. The code is an image, so it goes into Canva, a print shop's template or a home printer the same way a logo would.
The card needs one line of instruction, because nobody at a wedding reads a paragraph. Something like: Scan to open the wedding camera. No app, no sign-up. Add the couple's names if the card stands alone, and leave the rest of the space to the code itself. A wedding pictures QR code the size of a coaster scans from a seat; one the size of a stamp does not, and a glossy finish under candlelight can defeat a phone camera, so matte card is safer.
The code exists once you launch, and it is tied to the wedding rather than to a session, so cards printed weeks ahead still work on the day. If a guest cannot scan, which almost always means they opened it inside another app, the join link in the group chat opens the same camera.
Photo QR codes: the three kinds and how to make one