You are hosting a wedding, a milestone birthday, a memorial or a family gathering, and you want a guest book that holds more than signatures. You want the faces, the candid laughs and the shots from the back of the room that your own camera never caught. You also do not want to chase forty people for files afterwards, or ask older relatives to install and register for yet another app. A virtual guest book built around your guests' own phones gives you all of that in one place.
What is hard right now
- A paper guest book gets a name and "congratulations!" from each guest. It does not get the photo of Grandpa dancing that someone took at 10pm.
- I asked guests to send me their photos later. Three people did. The rest are scattered across camera rolls and group chats I will never see.
- I do not want guests to download an app and make an account just to leave a message or a picture. Half of them will give up at the door.
- I want to see everything, but I am not sure I want every guest scrolling the gallery during the event, or my photos sitting somewhere that sells data.
Scenarios
Wedding reception
A QR code sits on each table, right where the paper guest book used to be. Guests scan it, or type the eight-character invite, and they can start adding photos straight away. No account is required, so nobody has to sign up between the toast and the cake.
You pick a reveal mode for the gallery. Choose "After the event" and it unlocks when the event ends, which keeps the first look for the morning after. You can also pick "Additional delay" to open it a set number of hours after the end, or "During" if you want guests to see photos live. Reveal modes lets you choose.
Moments let you split the day into ceremony, reception and after-party, each with its own QR code and reveal timing. Guests move between them without switching apps. Everything lands in one shared album, a digital guestbook that holds the photos instead of only names. For more ideas on what to collect, see wedding guest book photo book ideas that capture more than signatures.
Milestone birthdays and family reunions
Aunt Sarah is on Android and the family group chat is iOS, so photos get lost in the thread. Instead, you share one invite link. Guests join from any modern phone browser, and installing the iOS or Android app is optional. It adds better camera controls and push notifications for new photos, but nobody needs it to take part.
During the party, guests can see photos live if you choose the "During" reveal mode. Afterwards you can filter the album by photographer to find who caught the cake moment, and export your favorites to keep. It is the same idea as a family reunion album, with one place for every cousin's shots.
The free tier covers up to 7 guest uploaders per event. When you create a larger event, SYNC PRO is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, that expands the guest and photo limits for a single event.
Memorials and quiet gatherings
A family wants a place where friends can add photos of the person they are remembering, without anyone needing to create an account or learn a new tool. You create an event, name it and pick an end time. Guests add photos from the invite link, and you keep the album as a private, event-scoped collection.
Photos are encrypted in transit and stored in event-scoped buckets, with access enforced by per-event row-level security. We don't sell your photos or your data. No ads. No cross-app tracking. See private event albums for how that works.
If you are organizing a memorial gathering, the gentlest part is that older relatives can add a picture from their phone browser without being asked to register for anything.
Features that make this work
Digital guestbook
Replaces the signature page with a shared album where every guest's photos land in one place for you to keep.
QR code invites
Guests scan a code at the table or type an eight-character invite, so nobody has to sign up before they can contribute.
Reveal modes
You choose whether guests see photos during the event, after it ends, or a set number of hours after the end, so the gallery opens when you want it to.
Private event albums
Photos are encrypted in transit and stored in event-scoped buckets with per-event access rules, so the guest book stays with your people.