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Cover photo: picking the one that shows up first

The cover photo is what guests see at the top of your gallery and what shows up in link previews when the URL is shared. Here is how to pick one, how to change it, and what makes a cover work.

Updated Apr 22, 2026For hosts

The cover photo does three jobs:

  1. It is the hero image at the top of the guest gallery
  2. It is the Open Graph preview when someone shares the URL in Messages, iMessage, WhatsApp, or on social
  3. It sets the visual tone for the whole gallery

If you do not pick one, we auto-select the most-liked photo, or the first photo uploaded if there are no likes yet. That is usually fine, but the first photo is often a guest's accidental selfie, and picking yours yourself takes 30 seconds.

How to set it

From your event page:

  1. Click Settings in the toolbar
  2. Click Cover photo
  3. A picker opens showing every photo uploaded to this event
  4. Click the photo you want
  5. Save

The cover updates everywhere immediately, gallery, link previews, the event card on your dashboard.

What makes a good cover

Based on what actually works at wedding galleries:

  • Horizontal orientation. Cover slots are wide. Vertical photos get cropped top and bottom.
  • Clear subject. One or two people, medium-framed. Dramatic landscape works if the wedding is venue-driven.
  • Well-lit. Cover photos are often seen on phones at small sizes. Deep shadow detail gets lost.
  • The couple together, if you have one. No single best frame, but the "couple looking at each other" or "first-kiss" photos outperform group shots and isolated details.

What does not work:

  • Selfies with phone faces in frame. People unconsciously deprioritize these.
  • Back-of-heads. Even if the shot is beautiful, faces read better as a cover.
  • Group photos of 20+ people. Everyone is tiny. Save these for the gallery body.
  • Pure detail shots (rings, flowers, table settings). They are gorgeous but they do not signal "this is a wedding" in a link preview.

Can I upload a new photo just for the cover?

The cover picker only shows photos already uploaded to this event. If you want a photo that is not in the gallery, upload it first (from the Upload button), then return to Cover photo and select it.

Pro tip: some photographers upload a purpose-shot "hero" frame, couple portrait, great light, deliberate composition, specifically to be the cover, never to be the best moment of the night.

What about video covers?

Not supported. Covers are photos only. Videos in the gallery are represented by their thumbnail frame. If you want to feature a specific moment from a video as the cover, grab a still from it on your computer and upload as a photo.

Link previews and when they refresh

When you change the cover, the URL's Open Graph preview (the image shown when you paste the link into Messages, etc.) updates on our side immediately. But Messages, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Slack cache these previews aggressively, often for 24 hours or more.

Workarounds:

  • Messages/iMessage: paste the link, send, delete. Re-paste. Sometimes this kicks a fresh fetch.
  • Facebook or LinkedIn: use their sharing debuggers to force a refresh.
  • Instagram: links in bio are only crawled when you change them, not when the page changes. Shorten the URL with a new slug to force a re-crawl.

If the link preview matters for your launch (e.g. you are sending the URL to the couple's family), set the cover early, ideally as soon as you have any decent photo, even if you change it later.

Default cover if I never pick one

If you do not set a cover:

  1. Most-liked photo becomes the cover automatically, once any photo has a like.
  2. First photo uploaded is the fallback before there are any likes.

This updates live as guests upload and like. It is a reasonable default for casual galleries, but it does mean the cover can change dramatically during the reception as guests upload.

For hosted-feeling galleries, set a cover manually at the start of the event and let the gallery body fill naturally underneath.

Cover photo on Viewing Room slideshow

The Viewing Room uses the cover photo as the first slide when the slideshow starts. If you are running the slideshow on a TV at the reception, your cover photo is the first thing guests see when they walk in.

This is another reason to set a deliberate cover before cocktail hour, the first impression of the slideshow is the cover, not a guest upload.

Removing a cover

In the Cover photo picker, click Clear cover to revert to the auto-selection default. The gallery will then pick the most-liked photo again.

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