How to make a wedding photo collage from guest photos
After a wedding, the roll can hold hundreds of photos taken by your guests. Here is how to turn a few of them into something you can send, frame, or print, with five ideas to start from and tips for printing. It works the same for a birthday, a trip, or an ordinary Sunday.
What Studio is
Studio is where photos off the roll become something you made. You start on a backdrop, lay photos over it, and add stickers and your own words. The result is a composition: one image, exported at full resolution, ready to send or print. There is more on the Studio page.
It works on any roll. Open a moment, tap Studio, and start a composition. Drafts are saved on your phone, so you can stop halfway and come back to it.
Choosing the photos
A composition holds a handful of photos, so the choosing matters more than the layout. Go through the roll once, quickly, and pick on instinct.
- Faces first. Someone laughing does more than a perfect view.
- Mix the distances: one wide shot of the room, a few at the tables, one close-up.
- Look for the photos only a guest could take: the view from the back, the moment between the speeches.
- Leave room for words. A photo with sky or a plain wall above the subject takes a caption well.
- Keep the looks together. If guests were free to switch film looks, a composition reads better in one: all Black & white, or all colour.
How to make a composition, step by step
- 01
Choose a backdrop
A colour, a texture, or a photo from the roll. Everything you add sits on it, and you can pinch a photo backdrop to reframe it.
- 02
Lay photos over it
Drag photos off the roll onto the backdrop, then turn them, stack them, and move them until the layout feels right.
- 03
Add stickers
There are 14 stickers in 6 sets: time and date, calendar, messages, quotes, frames, and labels. Among them are a date stamp, an instant print, a film strip, and a postage stamp.
- 04
Write your own words
Names, a date, a line from a speech, a caption under a photo: whatever the composition needs, in 5 type styles.
- 05
Save, then export
Drafts stay on your phone until you are ready. Then export at full resolution to your library, or to the share sheet to send it straight on.
Five ideas to start from
- 01
A thank-you card
A backdrop in your wedding colours, one photo from each table, and a message sticker with a line of thanks. Send it to everyone who was there: a thank-you made from their own photos.
- 02
A film strip of the night
Pick photos in the order the night happened, from the first drink to the last song, and set them in a film strip. Add the date in small type underneath.
- 03
Three instant prints on a backdrop
Three photos as instant prints, laid at angles across a plain backdrop, with a date stamp in the corner. It looks like prints left on a table the morning after.
- 04
A postcard from the trip
A photo from the roll as the backdrop, a postage stamp in the corner, and a few lines as if written on the back. Good for a honeymoon, a hen weekend, or any trip away.
- 05
A calendar page
A calendar sticker over a photo from the day, for the month it happened. Make 12 over a year of moments, and you have a calendar for the kitchen wall.
Printing tips
- Send the print shop the exported file itself. A copy sent through a chat may come out compressed.
- Check the shape against the paper. If they do not match, a print shop will usually crop the edges or add a border, so ask for a proof first.
- Keep words and faces away from the edges, where trimming can cut them off.
- Matte paper does not catch the light, which helps small type read; gloss makes colours look richer.
- Print one copy before you order a batch of thank-you cards.
Before the roll goes
Studio works with the photos on the roll, and the roll is kept for a set time: 48 hours after it closes on a free moment, 30 days on a paid one. Make your compositions, or download the photos you want, before then. Drafts live on your phone, and signing out removes them, so export what you want to keep.
Guests can use Studio too, with the photos they can see. A guest who makes something good can export it and send it to you.
If your guests' photos are not on one roll yet, start with how to get photos from your wedding guests, and see the wedding page for the day itself. Studio is not only for weddings: a small free roll for an ordinary day makes a good postcard too.
