A christening is often the one day the great-grandparents, the godparents and cousins from both sides are all in the same church hall. They'll all take photos. One QR code gathers them into a private gallery that isn't on Google, where Nan's photos count as much as anyone's.
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Christenings bring out relatives you see twice a decade. Great-grandad holding the baby, or both grandmas in their best hats: these are photos you may not get another chance at. By the end of the tea they're on everyone's phones, and the gallery is how they get to you.
The guests with the best photos are often the ones who'd never download an app. They don't have to. They open the camera, point it at the card on the table, and the upload page opens. Adding a name is optional and there's nothing else to type. If Nan can take a photo, she can add one.
Plenty of families have a christening gown that's been passed down, and someone always has the photo of Grandad wearing it as a baby. Ask relatives to photograph the old prints and add them too, so the first christening and the newest end up in the same gallery.
Lots of parents don't want their baby's face on social media. The gallery is private: one unguessable link, never listed on Google, no public feed, no ads. Anyone with the link or the QR code can see and add photos, so it goes as far as you send it, and you can delete any photo yourself.
When you send round the service time and where everyone's heading afterwards, include the ready-made invite message, so people know in advance there's no app to download.
The moment everyone gets their phones out is the group photo outside the church afterwards. That's a good time for a godparent to mention the QR code waiting at the tea.
Put an A6 card on each table, whether it's the pub, the church hall or your front room, and the A5 sign next to the cake. Whoever says a few words can read the MC line once the cake's cut. If there's a TV, plug in a laptop and run the photo wall while the baby naps.
Send the reminder message to the family group. The great-aunts will get to it in their own time, and the link keeps working. Then download the originals for the baby's memory box and the frames for both grandmas.
Print the table card or put the code up on a screen. Guests point their phone camera at it and the upload page opens in the browser, so there's nothing to install and nobody has to sign up. Every photo and video lands in one gallery, exactly as the phone saved it.
It's up to the church. Some ministers ask for no photos while the baptism is happening, others don't mind, and many are happy for photos at the font once the service ends. Ask when you book. The gallery doesn't depend on photos from the service: it's for everything around it, and anyone who did take some can add them.
Yes. The QR code downloads as an SVG, so it drops into an invitation design, and people can scan it on the day or later from the fridge door. Put cards out at the tea as well, because hardly anyone brings the invitation with them.
Yes. It works the same for a humanist naming day, an adult baptism, a confirmation or a First Holy Communion, which in Ireland especially is a full family day out. If they fall on different days, each is easiest as its own gallery.
Yes. Anyone with the link can open the gallery, pick photos and download the originals, which is how the grandparents get theirs. Only you, signed in, can delete photos. Keepcove never emails your guests and the guest pages carry no analytics, but the link itself is the key, so send it to people you'd trust with a print of the baby.
Set up the gallery before the day; it's free and takes about two minutes. You pay when you go live, which covers a year online; after that, the gallery renews automatically each year unless you cancel.
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