Here's exactly what happens when a wedding guest scans your QR code and shares a moment.
The guest side
- Scan, they open their phone camera, point at the QR, tap the notification that appears
- Land, a mobile-friendly page opens showing the couple's name, date, and a short hero image (usually the cover photo you set, or the first upload in the gallery)
- Tap, they tap + Share a moment at the bottom of the page
- Pick, their phone's photo picker opens, they choose one or more files
- Upload, files go directly from their phone to our storage. Progress shows per-file.
- Done, they see their contribution in the feed, can add a name if they want, and can keep browsing
No app download. No account sign-up. No email capture. Scan → tap → upload.
Behind the scenes
Photos: the original file is stored at full resolution. We also generate a web-friendly 1080px preview for fast feed loading. On free-tier events, the preview has a small Capture Club watermark. On paid tiers it doesn't.
Videos: the original is stored at full quality, then handed to our video service which makes it playable on every device. This takes anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes depending on file size. During that window, the video tile shows a "processing" indicator. Then it becomes playable with autoplay, mute toggle, and download button (on paid tiers).
Large files: up to 5 GB per file. Most iPhone photos are 5-12 MB. A 10-minute 4K video is ~4 GB. Uploads happen directly from the guest's phone to our storage, never through our servers, this is why even 5 GB videos work on decent Wi-Fi.
What guests see after uploading
- Their upload shows up instantly in the feed
- Everyone else on the same guest URL sees it too, live
- If Review mode is on, their upload goes into a pending queue only visible to the host, they'll see a "thanks, your moment is being reviewed" message
- They can heart, download, and share other guests' uploads
- They stay anonymous unless they typed a name (name is optional, stored in their browser so they only type it once)
What happens if the upload fails
Capture Club automatically retries failed files up to 3 times with increasing delays. On the 3rd failure it marks the file as failed and lets the guest try again manually.
Common causes:
- Weak Wi-Fi: switch to cellular or move closer to the router
- iCloud still downloading the photo: iOS sometimes hasn't finished pulling an older photo from iCloud yet; see the upload-stuck troubleshooter
- File too big (>5 GB), rare for photos, possible for long 4K videos
- Photo is live photo with glitched audio: very rare, affects <0.1% of iPhone live photos
If retries keep failing on a specific file, tell the guest to skip it and keep uploading other files. One bad file doesn't stop the rest.
Guest name handling
When a guest types their name in the sticky bar at the top, it's saved in their browser's local storage under a per-event key. Next time they return to the same event URL, the name pre-fills. Different events on the same phone get different name prompts, no cross-contamination.
Names are not required. Anonymous uploads still work fine. The only reason to ask for a name is so your downloaded zip files include guest attribution in the filename ("001_lena-abc123.jpg").
Privacy note
Guest uploads go to the host's gallery, not a public feed. The guest URL is a long random slug, so people can't guess it or stumble onto another wedding's gallery. But anyone with the URL can view and upload, it's a capability token, not auth.
If you're hosting something where you want stricter access control, set a password on Pro tier via Pro Settings → Viewing room password. Guests still need the link, but also have to enter the password before they see anything.