Posting wedding photos: what is actually allowed?

Almost every guest has a camera, and almost none of them have been told what the couple want. The result is a familiar sequence: a picture of the bride arriving appears online before half the guests have seen her in person.

This article covers what couples are usually asking for and why, what an unplugged ceremony means in practice, the specific photographs to leave alone, and the small courtesies around other people's faces and children. It is written for guests, but couples will find the wording they need in section five.

Where the couple have said nothing at all, the working convention across Britain, Ireland and North America is straightforward: wait until they post, then post.

The reason is not vanity. Three things are usually going on:

• Not everybody was invited. Weddings have tiers, and a photograph appearing at four o'clock tells the people who were not there exactly what they were not at.
• The dress. Couples spend a year on a reveal that lasts about eight seconds, and a photograph from the parking lot removes it for everybody who sees it first.
• The photographer. The professional images arrive two to six weeks later, and most couples want those to be the first properly seen.

Waiting a day costs a guest nothing. If the couple post that evening, post afterwards, and if they do not, a message the next morning asking whether they mind takes ten seconds.

The one exception people forget: a photograph of yourself, alone, at a wedding, with no couple in it and no guest list visible, is generally fine. It is the context that identifies the wedding, not the outfit.

An unplugged ceremony is one where guests are asked to put phones and cameras away for the ceremony itself. It is now common, and the request is nearly always about the ceremony only.

The practical reason for unplugging a ceremony is not sentimentality. A raised phone in an aisle seat appears in the professional photographs of the processional, and there is no way to remove it afterwards. Photographers ask for it because they have all delivered an album with a screen in the middle of the best frame.

If it is requested, it means all the way down: no phone at chest height, no watch camera, no discreet shot at the vows. The couple asked once and would rather not have to ask again in the moment.

Five categories, and they cover almost every complaint couples make afterwards.

1. The first sight of the dress. Arrival, the car, the corridor, the aisle. This is the single most common breach and the one that lands worst.
2. The ceremony, if it was unplugged. Posting a photograph you were asked not to take compounds it.
3. Anyone else's children. Ask a parent, every time, without exception. Plenty of families do not put their children online at all.
4. Unflattering photographs of other guests. Mid-sentence, mid-dance, mid-meal. You would not want the equivalent of yourself posted.
5. Anything from late in the evening involving alcohol. Guests have employers, families and lives that do not include this.

There is a sixth that is easy to miss: photographs that show the venue, the schedule and the fact that a house is empty. It is a small risk and worth a thought before posting the address of a wedding in progress.

If in doubt, the test is simple. Show the photograph to the person in it before you post it. Nearly every problem in this area is solved by that one habit, and it takes about fifteen seconds at a table.

Where a couple have set something up, use their thing rather than yours.

A hashtag is a request to collect the photographs in one place. It is also a request not to post outside it, at least implicitly. Use it exactly as written, including capitalisation, or the collection breaks.

A shared album or upload link is the better version of the same idea, and it is increasingly common because it keeps everything private. Guest photographs uploaded to a gallery the couple control get seen by the people who were there and by nobody else, which is what most couples actually want. Where the couple have set this up, it usually sits with the rest of the details on their wedding website.

Tagging is where people are most careless. Tagging the couple means the photograph appears to everyone who follows them, which for a wedding is a large and unpredictable group. Tagging other guests does the same to them. If you would not send the photograph to that person directly, do not tag them into it.

And check your own settings once before the day. A guest whose account is public is publishing a wedding to the internet; a guest whose account is private is showing it to friends. Those are different acts, and most people have never checked which one they are doing.

Guests almost always comply. What they cannot do is guess, and a request that arrives only as a sign at the door arrives too late for the people already posting from the parking lot.

Three places to say it, in order of usefulness:

• With the invitation details, weeks in advance. One sentence.
• On the day, as a sign at the entrance and a line from the officiant before the ceremony begins. The officiant's version is the one that works.
• Afterwards, a short message saying the professional photographs are coming and asking people to hold off until then.

Wording that works, because it explains rather than instructs: we would love you to be fully present with us, so we are asking for phones away during the ceremony; there will be plenty of time for photographs afterwards. And for posting: we would be grateful if you could wait until we have shared ours.

Be specific about the parts you care about. A blanket no photographs request is harder to follow and produces less than a targeted one about the ceremony and the dress. And if it matters to you, say what to do instead: a shared album with an upload link converts an enforcement problem into a collection of photographs you would not otherwise have.