Eventphoto.io
Create event
Guide · For wedding planners & coordinators

The QR codes a wedding planner sets up for every couple

By the time the wedding day arrives, a couple’s stationery can carry a handful of QR codes: the RSVP on the invitation, the map on the details card, the Wi-Fi at the bar, the guest photos on the table numbers. Left to whoever designs each piece, they come from different sites and different accounts, and nobody scans them all before they print. This is the set a planner can run the same way for every couple: which codes are worth making, which piece carries each one, how to print them so they scan, and the one code that has to be new for every wedding.

By the Eventphoto.io team. We make one of these codes, the guest photo and guest-book code, so that one gets a closer look. For the rest we have nothing to sell, and the advice is general practice that works with any QR generator. About us.

See the set →How the photo code works

The short answer

A wedding planner’s QR set usually covers the wedding website and RSVP (on the save-the-date and the invitation), directions and the schedule (on the details card and in the welcome bag), venue Wi-Fi and the menu (at the bar and on the tables) and the guest photo gallery (on the welcome sign and at every table). Most are plain links any QR generator makes: use static codes, give each one a single job, and scan every printed proof. The photo code is the exception. It opens one couple’s private gallery, so it is a new code for every wedding, created from your event credits when the day-of stationery goes to print, with your logo on the guest page if you want it there.

What it costs

  • Free: 20 photos per guest, kept 14 days from when you create the event
  • Paid: $19.99 (£15.99 in the UK) per event for unlimited photos and videos per guest, kept up to 12 months
  • One-time payment. No subscription and no fee per guest.

The set: which QR codes to make for each wedding

Not every wedding needs every code. A reception in a city restaurant may need two; a weekend at a country venue with shuttles and a welcome party may need all of them. Start from this list and cross out what the couple does not need. For each code: what it opens, where it is printed, when to make it, and what most often goes wrong.

The code you make in your workspace

Guest photos and the guest book

The couple’s private gallery. Guests upload photos and videos from the phone’s browser, see what everyone else has added, and can leave the couple a typed note or a filmed greeting in the guest book beside it. No app, no account.

Printed on
The welcome sign, the table numbers, a card at the bar, the cocktail-hour tables.
When to make it
When the day-of stationery goes to print, usually a few weeks before the wedding. Never at booking.
What to watch
A new code for every couple, never one you reuse from wedding to wedding. Why, and how to set it up, is further down.
How the photo code works →

The codes any QR generator makes

Wedding website and RSVP

The couple’s wedding website, or its RSVP page directly. The registry, the hotel block and the FAQ usually live on the same site, so one code can cover all of them.

Printed on
The save-the-date, and the invitation or its details card.
When to make it
Before the save-the-dates print, once the website’s address is final.
What to watch
Point it at the address the couple will keep. If they plan to move the site to a domain of their own, have them do it before anything prints. We make no wedding websites or RSVP forms, so this code comes from the couple’s website builder.

Directions and parking

A map pin, shared from a maps app such as Google Maps or Apple Maps.

Printed on
The details card, the welcome bag, the hotel’s welcome letter.
When to make it
With the invitations.
What to watch
Drop the pin on the entrance guests will actually use, or on the parking lot, not on the venue’s street address: at farms, estates and country venues the address can lead to a service road or a locked gate. If the ceremony and the reception are in different places, make one code for each and label both.

The schedule and transport

A page on the wedding website with the weekend’s timings: welcome drinks, the ceremony, shuttle pickups, the brunch the morning after.

Printed on
The welcome bag or itinerary card, and a sign in the hotel lobby.
When to make it
Once the timings are firm, a few weeks out.
What to watch
Link to a web page the couple can edit, never to a PDF. When a shuttle time moves, the page changes and nothing has to be reprinted.

Venue Wi-Fi

Nothing to open. A Wi-Fi code holds the network name and the password, and the phone offers to join the network when it scans it.

Printed on
A small card at the bar or the welcome table, and in the getting-ready rooms for the couple and their vendors.
When to make it
When the venue confirms which network guests may use, ideally after the final walk-through.
What to watch
Ask for the guest network, not the one the venue runs its own systems on, and test the password on site. If the network shows a sign-in or terms page after joining, the code cannot skip it, so run through the whole thing on a phone during the walk-through. Print the network name and password in words under the code for the phones that do not offer to join. Where cell service is weak, this is the code that lets guests upload their photos at all.

Menu, allergens and the bar

The menu with its allergen details, or the cocktail list, on a page of the wedding website or a view-only shared document.

Printed on
The bar, the buffet or food stations, the menu cards.
When to make it
When the caterer’s menu is final.
What to watch
A printed menu still belongs on the table; the code is for the detail a guest with an allergy needs. Get the allergen details from the caterer in writing, have the caterer approve the wording before it goes online, and keep it on a page you or the couple control, so it is still there on the wedding day.

The vendor sheet (for your team, not the guests)

A shared document with the timeline, load-in and load-out times, every vendor’s contact and the rain plan.

Printed on
The printed timeline you leave back of house at the venue, so anyone holding a paper copy can open the latest version. In an email, send the link itself.
When to make it
With the final timeline.
What to watch
A QR code is not a lock: anyone who sees it can open the link. Keep it off every guest-facing sign, set the document to view only, and turn off link sharing once the wedding is over.

Which piece of stationery carries which code

The same suite, in the order it goes out. The early pieces carry the codes guests need before the wedding; the photo code waits for the pieces they see at the wedding itself.

Which QR codes go on each piece of wedding stationery
PieceCodesNote
Save-the-dateWedding websiteNothing else yet. A photo code created this early would spend months of its storage time before the wedding.
Invitation and details cardWebsite or RSVP, directionsThe photo code only if the couple wants guests to know about it in advance, and then the event is created when the invitations print.
Welcome bag and hotel letterSchedule and transport, directionsFor weekend and destination weddings, where guests need the timings before they need anything else.
Ceremony programPhoto code, if the couple wants itAsk first. If the couple has asked for an unplugged ceremony, leave it off the program and start with the reception pieces.
Welcome sign and seating chartPhoto codeEvery guest walks past both. Put the code on the welcome sign or on a small sign beside the seating chart, not on the chart itself, so nobody stops to scan while the guests behind them look for their table.
Table numbers and menu cardsPhoto code; menu or allergen code if neededSeated guests, phones on the table, a lull between courses.
Bar cardWi-Fi, photo code, the bar menuIf more than one code shares the card, set them well apart and label each one.
Vendor timelineVendor sheetNever on anything a guest can see.

Rules that keep every code working until the last dance

One job per code, named in words

A square on its own tells a guest nothing. Under each code say what it does, in a few words: “RSVP here”, “Join the Wi-Fi”, “Add your photos of the day”. When one card has to carry two codes, separate them and label both, or the wrong one gets scanned.

Point codes at pages you can change

A code cannot be edited once it is printed, but the page it opens can. Send guests to a page on the wedding website rather than a PDF or a screenshot, and a late change to the schedule costs you an edit, not a reprint.

Static codes for print, or know whose account a dynamic code lives in

Many QR generator sites make dynamic codes by default: the code opens the generator’s own short link, which forwards to the real address. That lets you change the destination after printing, but the code only works while that account does, and on some sites the codes made during a free trial stop working when the trial ends. For anything printed, either make a static code, which holds the address itself and needs no account, or keep dynamic codes in your business’s paid account, not in a couple’s free trial.

Keep a code register for each wedding

One line per code in the planning file: what it opens, which account it lives in, who made it, and when you last scanned a printed copy. It is the first place you look when something changes late, and the list you hand over if a colleague covers the wedding.

Shorter addresses make easier codes

The less text a code holds, the fewer and larger its squares are at the same printed size, which helps in low light. Where you have a choice of addresses for the same page, use the short one.

The one we make: a photo and guest-book code for each couple

What guests get

Guests scan the code with the phone camera, and the couple’s event page loads in the phone’s browser; a PIN and their name later, they are choosing photos and videos from the camera roll. Guests install nothing and sign up for nothing. All of them share one gallery, with the guest book beside it, where a guest can type a note or film a short greeting for the couple, so one code does both jobs. Without the code, and the PIN while it is on, nobody gets in: the gallery is not public, and search engines do not list it.

Because a credit buys a paid event, there is no cap per guest on photos or videos, videos of up to 200 MB each are accepted, and the event comes with the guest book, the QR sign designer and 12 months of storage.

How you create it

In your coordinator workspace, the Pro dashboard (which is in English), a new event asks for three things: a name, usually the couple’s; whether you or the couple will manage it (for the couple, their email); and a PIN, switched on from the start, which you can turn off. Creating it spends one credit. An internal label only you can see, such as a booking reference, and a search by name, code or the couple’s email make any couple’s event quick to find in a busy season.

The event’s page then gives you the code in three forms: a print sheet showing the code, the event name and the event code to type in; the code on its own as a black-and-white PNG, to send to the stationer for their layout; and the QR sign designer, where you lay out a sign yourself at table-card, A5 or A4 size and download it ready to print. A4 is about the size of a letter sheet, so for a large welcome sign on an easel, send the stationer or sign shop the PNG and let them set it at full size.

The code does not carry the PIN, so print the PIN next to it, on the sign or under the code on the table numbers. Guests in the room just type it in, and a link that travels beyond the wedding does not open the gallery on its own.

What guests see of your business

Your business, if you want them to. Upload your logo and add your business name and color in the workspace, once. From then on, the guest page of every credit-funded event, including the ones already running, opens with your logo and name in its header and your color on its buttons, and your name and logo also head the event emails, which are still sent by us. Prefer not to appear at all? Choose Neutral and the page carries no brand of any kind, ours included: just the couple’s event. Two things never change: the guest page lives at our web address, and our legal links sit at the bottom. There is no white-label version and no custom domain, so anyone who checks the address can see it is us.

Your cost for each couple

You pay per wedding, in advance and in bulk: event credits are sold in packs of 5, 15, or 25, with a bigger discount on the bigger packs against the single-event price of $19.99. Each couple’s event uses one credit. Credits do not expire, and nothing renews.

5 event credits

$74.96

$14.99 a wedding · save 25%

15 event credits

$194.90

$12.99 a wedding · save 35%

25 event credits

$274.86

$10.99 a wedding · save 45%

After the wedding

Make the couple the event’s manager and it becomes theirs to run: the emails go to them, and they can change the PIN or the cover photo and download everything. Your own access stays as it was, and you can switch who manages it later from the event’s page. Download all gathers the photos and videos, and the filmed guest-book greetings, into a single ZIP and emails a link to whoever manages the event, usually within minutes. The emailed link expires after a while; if it has, the finished ZIP is still waiting on the event’s page in your dashboard. Typed guest-book messages stay out of the ZIP, so the couple should copy any they want to keep. 12 months after the day you created it, the event is deleted along with its photos and videos, and a line in your post-wedding thank-you reminding the couple to download is cheap insurance.

For how planners fit guest photos into their packages across a season, see guest photo sharing for wedding planners. For the couple’s side, where they might put the code and what their guests see, send them to our guide to the wedding QR code.

Why every couple gets a fresh code

One code, one gallery

Each event has its own code and holds exactly one wedding. Print last month’s code again and this Saturday’s guests land in last month’s gallery, among another couple’s photos, while that couple’s guests can see this Saturday’s. There is no switch that empties a code for the next wedding, and for a private gallery there should not be.

The clock starts when you create it

The 12 months of storage are counted from the event’s creation, whatever the wedding date. Create it at booking and the engagement eats into that time: a couple engaged for a long while could reach the wedding with little or none of it left. So create each couple’s event on the day the stationery that carries the code goes to the printer: the day-of signs and table numbers, usually a few weeks out, or the invitations if the couple wants it there.

If the date moves

Postponements are one more reason not to create early. As long as nothing has been added, no photos and no guest-book messages, deleting the event returns its credit to your balance. Make the replacement when the new stationery goes to print; it has a code of its own, so anything printed with the old one needs reprinting. Scanning a code to check it adds nothing; uploading a test photo does, so check printed codes by scanning only.

What you can reuse

The design, the wording and the frames. Keep your sign and table-number layouts as templates, and for each couple swap in their names, their code and their PIN.

Printing and placing the codes

These hold for every code in the set, whoever made it.

Dark on light, with room around it

Codes scan best as dark squares on a pale background with clear space on every side. Foil, metallic ink and deep letterpress look lovely on the rest of the card; on the code itself, foil and metallic ink throw glare back at the camera, and a deep letterpress impression can fill in the small squares. On clear acrylic and mirror signs, put the code on a white or solid backing. Light codes on dark paper look striking, and some phone cameras will not read them.

Size it for the distance

A rule of thumb many QR generators publish: make the code at least a tenth as wide as the distance it is scanned from. A table number read from a chair can be small; a welcome sign read from across the entrance cannot.

Approve the printed proof, not the file

Scan every code from a printed proof, from where a guest will be: seated across a table, standing at the bar, under the room’s evening lighting, on an iPhone and an Android phone. Textured and coated papers can turn a code that scans on screen into one that does not. For the photo code, use a phone that is not signed in to your workspace: on yours, the page skips the PIN and name screens your guests will see.

Check whose wedding it opens

When two couples’ stationery is at the printer in the same week, follow every code through to the page it opens and read the names on it. A code swapped between two print files is the one mistake guests have no way around.

Give every code a way in without the camera

Print the web address under the website code, the network name and password under the Wi-Fi code, and the gallery’s web address and the PIN under the photo code, with the PIN labeled as the PIN, since a guest who sees two codes under one square can type the wrong one into the box.

Put one line in the MC’s script

Add it to the run of show for whoever has the mic, usually the DJ: where the photo code is and what it is for, timed for a moment when guests are seated with their phones nearby, such as once dinner is served.

One couple’s codes, from save-the-date to handover

  1. 1

    At onboarding

    Start the couple’s code register in your planning file, and agree who owns the wedding website and its RSVP page. It is normally the couple’s account, not yours.

  2. 2

    Before the save-the-dates

    Make the website code once the address is final, scan the printed proof and follow it all the way to the RSVP form.

  3. 3

    With the invitations

    Add the directions code. Add the photo code only if the couple wants it on the invitation, and in that case create their event now.

  4. 4

    When the day-of stationery goes to print

    Create the couple’s photo event from your credits, choose who manages it and keep the PIN on. Send the stationer the code as a PNG, or design the sign yourself, and collect the Wi-Fi details from the venue and the allergen details from the caterer.

  5. 5

    At the proof stage

    Scan every proof from a guest’s distance, check each code opens the right page for the right couple, and note the date in the register.

  6. 6

    On the wedding day

    Put the signs out alongside the place cards and table numbers, scan the Wi-Fi code on site, and make sure the MC has the line about the photos.

  7. 7

    After the wedding

    Kept the event? Request the ZIP with Download all and pass the link to the couple as soon as it lands. Handed it over? Remind them to download it, and to save the typed guest-book messages by hand, since the ZIP leaves them out.

Wedding planner QR codes: questions coordinators ask

What QR codes does a wedding planner usually set up?

It depends on the wedding, but the usual set is the wedding website and RSVP on the save-the-date and the invitation, a map pin for directions and parking, the weekend schedule for a wedding that runs over several days, the venue Wi-Fi, the menu or allergen list, a guest photo gallery on the welcome sign and the tables, and a vendor sheet for your own team. A city restaurant reception may need only the website and the photo code; a weekend at a country venue may need every one.

Can I make wedding QR codes with a free QR code generator?

Yes, for anything that is just a link: the website, the RSVP page, a map pin, the menu. Check two things first. Is the code static, holding the address itself, or dynamic, forwarding through the generator’s own short link? A dynamic code from a free trial can stop working when the trial ends, after the invitations are already in the mail. And does the service put its own page or ads in front of the destination? For print, a static code is the safe choice. The photo code is different: it comes with the couple’s event, so you do not make it in a generator at all.

Is there a QR code template for wedding coordinators?

For the plain link codes, your template is your own stationery: keep layouts for the welcome sign, the table numbers and the bar card in whatever design tool you use, and drop each couple’s codes into them. For the photo code, a credit event gives you the code as a black-and-white PNG for that layout, a ready-made print sheet, and the QR sign designer, where you choose the colors, write the wording and download a print-ready sign at table-card, A5 or A4 size.

Is there a QR code app for wedding planners?

You do not need one. The guest side of the photo code is a web page: guests scan with the camera they already have and upload from the browser, so nobody installs anything. Your side is the Pro dashboard of your coordinator workspace, a web dashboard in English, where you create each couple’s event, buy credits and download the photos. Most apps sold as wedding planner apps are planning tools for couples or client-management software for planners, which is a different job.

Can one QR code cover the RSVP, the schedule and the photos?

Partly. One code can open the wedding website, and the website can hold the RSVP, the schedule, the registry and the travel pages, which is often the tidiest choice for the invitation. The photo gallery is not a page of that website: it is the couple’s own private event, with its own code and PIN, created nearer the day. Keep it as a second code on the day-of stationery.

Should the photo QR code go on the invitations?

Usually not. Invitations go out weeks or months before the wedding, and the storage time of the couple’s event is counted from its creation, so a code printed on the invitation has to exist that much earlier. The photo code does its work on the day, on the welcome sign, the table numbers and the bar. If the couple does want it on the invitation, so guests know to expect it, create the event when the invitations go to print and accept that those weeks come out of the time afterwards.

What does a photo QR code cost per wedding?

The code itself costs nothing: it comes with the event, and the event is what you pay for. From your workspace, credits are sold in packs of 5, 15, or 25, so a wedding costs you between $10.99 and $14.99 depending on the pack, while one event paid for without credits is $19.99. Credits never expire. A couple who buys their own event pays $19.99 (£15.99 in the UK) once, and that event shows our name, not yours. To try it first, a free event costs nothing: it takes photos but not videos, up to 20 per guest, and it is deleted 14 days after it is created.

Do Wi-Fi QR codes work on every guest’s phone?

On most current phones, yes: the iPhone camera and the camera or QR scanner on Android phones read a Wi-Fi code and offer to join the network. Older phones and some camera apps do not, so print the network name and password in words under the code. Make the code for the venue’s guest network, and scan it on site before the wedding day if you can.

Does the photo QR code still work after the wedding?

Yes, until the event is deleted, 12 months after the day you created it. Guests who take a table card home can still add the photos they find on their phones the week after. Once the event is deleted, the code opens a page saying the event may have expired, and everything in it is gone, so whoever manages the event should request the ZIP with Download all before then (the link comes by email, usually within minutes) and keep a copy of the typed guest-book notes, which the ZIP leaves out.

Print a test code before the next couple’s stationery

Create a free event, print its code on plain paper, and have someone scan it from across a table while you watch what happens on their phone. Free events take photos only and show our name, not yours. For your weddings, a coordinator workspace adds credit packs, your branding on the guest page and handing each event to the couple.

Create free eventSet up a coordinator workspace

Related pages