How to deliver wedding photos to clients

The short answer: not by email, and usually not through a shared folder in your own cloud storage either. A wedding delivery runs from 10 to 60 GB, a thousand times the size of an email attachment. That leaves two methods that really work, and the choice between them depends not on the size but on how long the photos should stay online: an online photo gallery, if you want previews, favourites and print orders over months, or a transfer link, if you want to hand the delivery over once, cleanly, without keeping it in your own storage.

The three options, compared honestly

When an online gallery is the better choice

If wedding photography is your main work and the couple picks the album images from hundreds of shots, a dedicated gallery wins. It gives you previews, favourites, print orders and a page that looks like your brand, not like a folder. A transfer link does none of that, and if you need those things there is no point fighting generic tools. You pay a permanent subscription, but you are paying for selling, not for transport.

When a transfer link is the better choice

When the delivery is final, when the couple wants the files in full quality on their own drive, or when you only shoot the occasional wedding, a transfer link is simpler and cheaper. You hand over once, the couple downloads, and you choose how long the link stays open; on Premium you can also choose a link that never expires. With an end date, the link stops working on the day you picked. The couple never has to create an account.

The same logic works for the deliveries in between: the next-day preview, the 30 images for social media, the film of the ceremony. These are files that travel once and do not need to take up space for good.

How to deliver 30 GB without losing quality

1. Export at full resolution and pack everything into one ZIP archive on your computer.
2. Open Transferify and add the archive. Nothing to install, it all happens in the browser.
3. Choose how to send: Direct for an instant transfer, or Hosted for a link that stays online, as explained below.
4. If you are not signed in yet, confirm your email address with a one-time code. You do not choose a password.
5. Send the link and tell the couple the date by which they need to download.

The difference between the two modes matters here. Instant transfer runs straight between the two browsers, peer-to-peer, and needs your tab to stay open until the couple has finished downloading. It fits when you are both at a computer, during a selection session for example. A hosted link is encrypted on your device, uploaded once, and can be downloaded at any time within its expiry window, which makes it the right fit for the delivery itself.

Which plan a wedding delivery needs

The free plan covers a preview or a selection, with 50 downloads a month, but not a complete delivery. For the full archive you have two routes. The first is instant transfer: Instant is free up to 5 GB on the free plan, and a paid plan sends any size. The second is a hosted link, which keeps working after you close your laptop: above the free size it needs a paid plan, which raises the size and the expiry. The figures for each plan, including the maximum size and the number of downloads, are on the pricing page, which reads them from the same catalogue the product enforces.

Three mistakes that ruin a delivery

• Sending without telling the couple how long the link lasts. With an end date, they may put it off until the link has expired, and you upload 30 GB a second time.
• Deleting the master too early. Keep the delivery on a drive of your own until the download is confirmed.
• Delivering to a client who only uses a phone. Tell them from the start that they need a computer.

If you also care about the security side, who else can open the link and what happens to the files after expiry, carry on with the guide on how to send files securely. If you are weighing a cloud folder for deliveries instead, see how Transferify compares with Dropbox.

The first mistake on the list is the easiest to avoid by reading up on expiry before you deliver: how long a link can last on each plan, and what can be extended, is in the guide on how long a transfer link lasts. Every other way of sending big files is on the page about how to send large files.

Deliver the wedding photos with a link, and the couple downloads them in full quality with no account.