Elopement Photo Delivery: A Gallery for the People Who Were Not There

With a large wedding, guests have often taken their own photos and posted them the same night. Your gallery arrives weeks later as the polished version.

With an elopement, your photos are often the only record. Nobody else was holding a camera on the cliff or in the courthouse.

That shifts what the gallery has to do. It has to work for a grandmother on a tablet, a brother on a work laptop and a friend on another continent, without any of them calling the couple for help.

It also has to let the couple post the day in the formats their feeds expect, because the announcement is often the first time most of their circle learns they married.

So the three jobs are simple: one link that opens anywhere, an easy way to pass it on, and files ready for social posts.

A clientgallery.io gallery is a web page. Nobody installs an app and nobody creates a login to view it.

The address sits on the studio's own subdomain, and the page carries the studio's name and logo with no platform branding.

You can add a password. It covers the whole gallery, so the couple forwards the link and the password together.

Relatives can switch the page between light and dark, and the choice is remembered for that gallery on their device.

The link has no expiry date. The gallery stays up for as long as your account exists, unless you delete it or switch the link off. That matters for elopements, because relatives often come back to the photos months later, around an anniversary or a reception party.

If you shot more than one location, organise the gallery into sections. The client sees one scrolling page with a jump-to bar at the top, so a relative can go straight to the ceremony or the portraits without hunting.

A section also has its own link. That page is view-only: no downloads, no picks, no comments and no way back to the full gallery. It suits a relative who should see the ceremony and nothing else.

Each gallery can show a "Share this gallery" button. It is a per-gallery switch in the studio.

Where the device has a share sheet, as phones do, the button opens it, so the couple can send the link by text, email or a messaging app in two taps.

Where the browser has no share sheet, the button copies the link to the clipboard.

Shares are counted in your account-wide analytics, alongside visits, unique visitors, photo views and downloads. The figures cover your whole account, not one gallery.

On each gallery tile in your studio, an opened indicator tells you whether the client has looked at the gallery yet.

Switch the share button off when the couple wants the gallery kept to the two of them, for example when the day included private portraits.

Relatives want to look. The couple wants to post. The gallery handles the second job through picks.

In the full-screen view, the couple marks photos with a star or a heart. One tap on the photo stars it and a double tap loves it.

When they are done, they tap "Send my picks", type a name and an email, and confirm. Sending locks the picks.

Once picks are sent, four buttons appear on the gallery: Story, Post, Square and Wide. Each button downloads every pick, stars and loves alike, cropped to that shape.

The crop is taken from the centre of each proof, in the browser. The client does not choose the framing, so a photo with the couple at one edge may lose them. Tell the couple to check each file before posting.

Videos are skipped. The crop buttons are on by default and never appear on a section link.

Our answer page on how clients post gallery photos to Instagram covers the platform side, including why crediting you is not the same as permission to post.

A link the couple forwards to fifty people behaves like a link fifty people hold. Four settings deserve a decision before you send it.

• Picks are one shared set. Everyone with the link marks the same gallery. Ask the couple to send their picks before they forward the link, because sending locks the set and stops an aunt from adding stars. If you are not running a selection at all, switch picks off, and the gallery opens with a "Your photos are ready" line instead. Crops need sent picks, so that also removes the crop buttons.
• Comments carry the couple's name. Comments are off by default. If you switch them on, every note is signed with the gallery's client name, whoever typed it. On a gallery relatives will open, leave comments off or run the revision round before the link goes out.
• The download switch is narrower than it looks. Switching downloads off hides "Download all photos" and the per-photo download button. It does not hide the full-resolution ZIP when one is live, and it does not remove the crop buttons.
• The name on the picks overwrites the client name. Whatever name and email the couple types when sending picks replaces the gallery's client name and email. Check it before you reply.

You are notified when the couple sends picks: by email with the loved and starred counts, in your studio feed, and on your iPhone if picks notifications are on. The phone download notification fires only when the full-resolution ZIP is downloaded.

Some eloping couples show the photos to their families on a video call or at a small dinner afterwards.

The gallery has a full-screen slideshow that advances on its own and loops. There is no interface on screen while it runs. A tap or the Escape key exits.

The slideshow button appears when the gallery holds more than one photo, and it is a per-gallery switch.

A welcome note, set per gallery, shows under the gallery title. Use it for a line the couple would want relatives to read first, such as the place and the date.

Relatives who want copies can take the whole gallery in one click, as a ZIP of the hosted proofs, or save a single image. Our answer on downloading all photos at once explains what that ZIP contains.

Proofs are sized for fast viewing on a phone. They are good for screens and sharing. They are not your print masters.

For the couple's full-resolution files, upload a ZIP to the gallery. That is a paid-plan feature. The ZIP stays live for three days, and the client sees how many days are left. You can re-upload it at any time to restart the window.

Tell the couple to download the full-resolution ZIP that week and keep a second copy. The gallery link keeps working after the ZIP comes off, as our answer on a gallery link that never expires explains.

1. Organise the gallery into sections by location or moment.
2. Write a welcome note with the place and the date.
3. Decide on a password, and tell the couple to forward it with the link.
4. Leave comments off unless you are running a revision round first.
5. Ask the couple to send their picks before they share the link.
6. Remind them the crops are centred, so they check each file before posting.
7. Upload the full-resolution ZIP and ask them to save it within three days.
8. Switch the share button off if the gallery should stay private to the couple.

clientgallery.io has no print store. If your elopement business earns money when relatives order prints, albums or wall art from the gallery, keep a platform with a built-in store. A flat-price delivery tool would cost you that revenue.

The gallery hosts photos. It does not warehouse master video files, so deliver an elopement film through your usual video channel.

There are no seats or separate logins. A two-photographer team shares one account.

There is no automatic expiry either. If you want a gallery to go dark on a date, you switch the link off yourself.

• This page states no external figures. Every figure and feature above was read in the clientgallery.io product code on 2026-09-16: the gallery page, sharing, picks and their lock, the four crop presets and their ratios, the slideshow timing, the comment, label and download switches, section links, notifications, the 10 $ monthly and 100 $ annual price, the free plan, the 1,000-photo, 250 GB and 100 GB ceilings, and the three-day full-resolution ZIP window.