It is essential to hire a professional photographer for your wedding, but a guest’s perspective can offer a completely different view of the day and their photographs can often make up an incredible second set of images, telling another version of a wedding day. After all, you can’t have too many great memories!

By Catherine Lash

While many guests have long brought their own cameras, ten years ago it was popular to leave disposable cameras on dinner tables for guests to use and leave behind for the couple to have processed. Unfortunately, those usually ended up being predominantly of friends eating, and it was quite expensive. The one thing it guaranteed though {provided the cameras were left behind}, was that the couple always saw the photos.

Now that we’re living in a digital world, and almost every mobile phone includes a digital camera that does both stills and video, it’s no longer necessary to leave cameras out. Almost everyone has some means of taking a snapshot whether they have a camera or not. In turn, guests’ photographs are also easily uploaded to any photo-sharing software from Flickr to Facebook to share the great moments of the day. One fairly new program is called  Olapic, which was designed specifically for weddings and other shared events.

Now, rather than dealing with processing film, couples need only register at Olapic and upload their guest list. Olapic will then remind guests to bring their cameras to the wedding and then walk them through downloading high resolution images to the couple’s private account. The pictures remain private with the option of sharing via the major photo-sharing programs. This is yet another fabulous technological development that saves time, money AND the environment. Olapic can even print an album for you for that complementary ’second perspective’ to your photographer’s.

An account at Olapic is $99USD.

Olapic discovered via Springwise.