Engagement Session Photo Gallery: From Picks to the Save-the-Date

Cull before you upload. A couple choosing a save-the-date frame does better with a tight set than with every frame from the golden hour. Each gallery holds up to 1,000 photos, but that is a fair-use ceiling, not a target.

Group the session by location or outfit with sections. The couple sees one scrolling page with a jump-to bar at the top, and each entry shows its photo count. Photos you did not place in a section appear first, under Highlights.

Use the welcome note to state the task in plain words. For example: star anything you like, love the two or three you want on the card, then press Send my picks. The note shows under the gallery title and your studio details.

The page carries your studio name and logo and no platform branding. It lives on your own subdomain, and you can put a password on it. The couple installs nothing and creates no account.

Set the client name in the Pro proofing panel before you send the link. If you switch comments on, every note on the page is signed with that name, because the page never asks who is writing.

Picks have two levels. A star means yes, I like this one. A love means this is the one.

Picks are made in the full-screen view. The couple can use the star and heart buttons, or tap the photo itself: one tap stars it and a double tap loves it. Grid tiles only show a badge for what has already been marked.

The two levels fit an engagement session well. Stars can be generous, since they are the pool for social posts and a possible print order later. Loves should be scarce, since they name the save-the-date candidates.

Tell the couple how many loves you expect. Two or three is a good instruction when the card needs one image and a backup. A clear number turns a browsing session into a decision.

The gallery keeps one shared set of picks. If both partners open the link on different phones, they are editing the same selection. A change made by one partner appears for the other only after a page reload, so suggest they choose side by side or take turns.

If they want to sort the maybes, you can switch on colour labels for the gallery. They offer the five Lightroom colours: red, yellow, green, blue and purple. Each photo holds one label, shared by everyone with the link, and tapping the current colour clears it.

When the couple is done, they press Send my picks. The button sits in the tray at the bottom of the page, and it also replaces Next on the last photo in the full-screen view.

A confirmation asks for a name and an email and warns that sending locks the picks. Whatever they type there replaces the client name and email stored on the gallery. That matters if you had set a name for comment signatures earlier.

After the send, the star and heart buttons and the tray disappear. Any further attempt to change a pick is refused by the server. Colour labels and comments keep working.

You are told in three ways. An email reaches you with the count of loved and starred photos. The send appears in your event feed, and the iPhone app pushes a notification if a device has picks notifications on.

Sometimes a couple changes their mind about the card. In the gallery manager, Reopen picking unlocks the selection. The earlier picks stay in place, and the couple sees the tray again the next time they load the page.

Reopening does not notify the couple, so send them a short message yourself. When they send again, you get a new email.

Once the picks are sent, the page shows four crop buttons: Story, Post, Square and Wide. They appear only when the social crops switch is on, which is the default, and when at least one photo was picked.

One button covers the whole selection. Pressing Story downloads every pick, stars and loves alike, cropped to 9:16. Videos are skipped.

Each crop is a centre crop made in the browser from the proof image, saved as a JPEG named with the pick number and the preset. The couple cannot move the framing. If a centre crop cuts a face, the fix is a different photo, or a crop you make yourself.

These files are sized for phones and feeds. They are not print files, so the save-the-date printer should get your finished full-resolution image, not a crop from the gallery.

The download switch does not remove the crop buttons. If you want the couple to have no files until you are paid, know that the crops still appear after the send. Switching downloads off hides Download all photos and the per-photo download button, and nothing more.

For the posting side, including credit and usage questions, see the answer page on clients posting gallery photos to Instagram, linked below.

A centre crop throws away the edges. The share it keeps depends on how you held the camera. The table below is plain arithmetic for a 3:2 frame, a common camera shape.

The practical lesson is simple. Give the couple both orientations of the moments they are likely to love. Keep faces near the centre of the frame when you expect the shot to end up on social.

Once picks are sent, the gallery manager shows Export picks (.txt). The file lists one filename per line, loved photos first, then starred. Nothing in the file marks where the loves end, so read the counts from the notification email.

If you work in Lightroom Classic, the two-way plugin pulls the picks back into your catalog by filename. A star becomes 3 stars. A love becomes 5 stars plus a Pick flag, and every pick lands in a collection named after the gallery.

That gives you the save-the-date candidates as a filter on 5 stars. Finish those first, since the printer is the deadline.

On a paid plan you can then upload a full-resolution ZIP to the same gallery. It stays live for 3 days, the couple sees how many days remain, and a new upload restarts the clock. If download notifications are on in the iPhone app, you get a push when the couple opens that ZIP.

If you retouch the loved frames, mark them on the retouch round page. The couple then sees a retouched badge on each of those photos and a count of how many of their picks are retouched.

The numbers that govern all of this are below.

clientgallery.io has no print store and takes no commission. If your engagement packages earn money from prints, albums or wall art ordered inside the gallery, keep a platform with a store.

If you want the couple to reframe each social crop by hand, this gallery will not do it. Deliver crops you made yourself instead.

If the payment must unlock the files automatically, that is not how it works here. You can paste your own payment link and attach an invoice, but switching downloads on or off stays a manual step.

This page states no external figures. Every product behaviour and number above comes from the clientgallery.io application code, checked on September 16, 2026: pick levels, the send and its lock, reopening, notifications, social crop presets, the download switch scope, sections, labels, the picks export, the Lightroom mapping, the full-resolution ZIP, and plan limits.

The crop percentages in the table are arithmetic from the aspect ratios, assuming a 3:2 camera frame, not a measurement.