How to Create a Private Photo Gallery for Your Event

Most photo sharing links are public by default. You create a Google Photos album, copy the link, and send it out — and that link can be forwarded to anyone, shared on social media, or stumbled upon by someone you didn't invite.

For a wedding, birthday party, or corporate event, that's a problem. Here's how to set up a gallery that only your actual guests can access.

Why Privacy Matters for Event Galleries

Personal events: Your wedding photos include children, elderly relatives, people who are deliberately off social media, and intimate moments you didn't consent to making public. A gallery accessible to anyone with a link means those photos could be forwarded widely.

Corporate events: Company events sometimes include discussions, presentations, or candid moments that aren't meant to be public. A gallery that a disgruntled attendee could forward externally is a liability.

Basic security: An open link can be indexed by search engines if someone shares it publicly, making your private photos discoverable to anyone.

The Problem with Link-Only Access

"Anyone with the link can view" is the default for most file sharing and photo services. It feels like access control because you have to have the link — but links are trivially easy to forward.

If you send a link to 200 wedding guests, that link effectively passes through 200 phones. It may be texted to partners, emailed to parents, shared in other group chats. You have no control over where it ends up.

Approaches That Actually Control Access

1. Phone Number Verification (Most Practical)

Some event photo platforms require guests to verify their phone number via SMS before accessing the gallery. The flow is: scan QR code → enter phone number → receive SMS code → enter code → access gallery.

This is the same verification model used by banks, government services, and major apps — guests are already familiar with it. It effectively limits access to people with a verified phone number, which in practice means people actually at your event.

The benefit: even if the QR code or link is forwarded to someone who wasn't at the event, they can't access the gallery without a phone number that was verified.

2. Password Protection

Some platforms allow you to password-protect a gallery. You share the password with guests directly.

This works reasonably well for small, organised guest lists. For a 300-person wedding banquet, managing and distributing a password is cumbersome, and passwords get shared as readily as links.

3. Account-Based Access

Platforms that require guests to create an account before viewing photos have the strongest access control. The downside is that account creation is a significant barrier — many guests won't complete it, dramatically reducing participation.

This is the right approach for professional contexts (corporate events where you genuinely need to know who viewed the gallery) but too high-friction for most social events.

4. Closed Google Photos Album

Google Photos allows shared albums where you approve who can contribute. This gives more control than an open link but still requires guests to have Google accounts, and approval management for a large guest list is tedious.

What to Look for When Choosing a Platform

Is access controlled, or is it link-only? Understand exactly who can access the gallery with a given URL.
What happens if the link is forwarded? With phone verification, forwarding the link doesn't give access. With link-only, it does.
Can you see who has accessed the gallery? For corporate events, this may matter.
Can you remove a specific person's access? For instance, if someone uploads inappropriate content, can you block their access?

Setting It Up

If using an event photo platform with phone verification:

Create your event and receive the QR code
The QR code links to a page where guests enter their phone number
Guests receive an SMS verification code
Once verified, they access the gallery and can upload

No action needed on your end per guest — the system handles access automatically.

The Guest Log uses SMS phone verification for all guest access — the gallery is private to verified guests only. From S$49 per event.