Here’s Exactly What to Do with Your Wedding Photos

So, your wedding is over and you’ve received your amazing photos. Now what? All too often, couples’ wedding photos stay stored on their computer never to see the light of day. You put so much time, effort, and money into your big day and have so many beautiful images to prove it, so let those memories shine! If you’re wondering what to do with your wedding photos, turns out you have lots of options, from sharing them on social media to displaying them in various ways in your home. We recommend figuring out the best things to do with your wedding photos shortly after receiving them—if you wait too long, you might get busy and never take the time to organize and feature them in your home or elsewhere.  

Don’t hide your photos on your computer—here’s exactly what to do with your wedding photos.

Back them up.

Before you can think about what to do with your wedding photos, you’ll need to make sure they’re in a safe place. Immediately after downloading your photos from your photographer’s online gallery, save them on your computer and be sure to back them up with a cloud service, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Drive, or iCloud. To be extra safe, we recommend saving your wedding photos in a few other places—an external hard drive, thumb drives, and an online photo album with Shutterfly or a similar service. You never know when a computer or cloud issue might cause you to lose files, the more places you can save your precious wedding images, the better!  

Organize them.

Once your photos are stored safely, it’s time to organize them into a few folders. Your photographer may have organized your photos into folders such as “ceremony,” “reception,” “portraits,” etc., but it’s a good idea to create folders of your favorites for easy reference. You and your spouse can each create your own folders of favorite images, or you can even get super specific and create separate folders for different types of pics such as “photos with parents,” “favorite couple portraits,” or “guest photos.” Just make sure that the folders are clearly labeled. We also recommended keeping copies of all of your photos in your photographer’s original folders, just in case.

Share them on social media.

When it comes to what to do with your wedding photos, the most obvious step is to share them on social media. While you may want to put up all of your wedding photos as soon as you receive them, we recommend taking a breath and organizing your images first. You can share a few of your favorite images on Instagram (either in a carousel, a few separate posts, or a saved story), and a bigger album on Facebook. And know that you don’t have to share all of your wedding images at once—you can post images from your big day on special occasions and anniversaries throughout the year (just try not to overshare too much!).

Create a wedding album.

Surprisingly, this is a step many couples just don’t get around to. While creating a wedding album can be time-consuming, you won’t regret having a beautifully bound photo book full of your gorgeous images. You can work with your photographer or use an online service like Artifact Uprising, Mixbook, and Shutterfly, all of which can make creating an album a breeze. Don’t forget to create smaller “brag books” for your parents—they make great gifts!

Display them in your home.  

Your wedding photos are basically works of art—so decorate your walls, shelves, nightstands, and more with gorgeous framed images from your big day. You can choose to create a gallery wall featuring several of your favorite wedding photos, hang a single amazing shot above your fireplace, or put framed photos throughout your house. If you’ve received picture frames as wedding gifts you’re off to a good start, or enlist a company like Framebridge to do the framing legwork for you.

Create thank-you note stationery with them.

One of the best things to do with your wedding photos is to feature them on thank-you note stationery. If you’re going this route, we recommend ordering some thank-you notes using an engagement photo to thank guests for gifts received before the wedding. Then, after the wedding, you can create stationery using your wedding pics. Online stationers like elli and Shutterfly have a wide variety of photo card options, as do many sellers on Etsy.   

Feature them on your holiday cards.

If you and your new spouse have never sent holiday cards before, the year of your wedding is a great time to start. Use a site like Shutterfly to create gorgeous and unique holiday cards featuring your favorite wedding photo.

Use them to create unique gifts.

Struggling to figure out what to buy your mom, dad, in-laws, grandma, brother, best friend, etc. for their next birthday or special occasion? Why not use one of your wedding photos to create a special gift? Your mom will absolutely love a coffee mug with a photo of you and her emblazoned on the front, and your grandmother will be thrilled to have a calendar full of family photos from the big day. Sites like Shutterfly and Etsy are a great place to find photo gift ideas.

Get them published.

So, you’ve framed them, created an album, made thank-you stationery and holiday cards. What else can you do with your wedding photos? Head over to RealWeds to learn more about getting your images published on WeddingWire. Your photos can inspire other engaged couples for years to come, and it’s another way for you to relive the best day ever.

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