Most wedding galleries are not permanent. Vendors set them to stay live for a window, commonly somewhere between a month and a year after delivery, and almost no wedding contract promises to host your files forever. The only copy of your wedding that is certain to exist in twenty years is the one you downloaded and backed up yourself. It takes about twenty minutes, once, and almost nobody does it.
Here is what the policies actually say, why they exist, and the short checklist that makes all of it irrelevant.
What studios actually do
There is no industry standard here, which is the first thing worth knowing. Retention is set studio by studio, and often it is set by whichever gallery platform they happen to use rather than by a decision anyone made. Broadly, you will run into four patterns.
- A delivery window. The gallery is live for a set period after delivery, commonly measured in weeks or months, and then it comes down. This is the most common arrangement and the one couples are most often surprised by, because the window is usually stated once, in the contract, and never mentioned again.
- A year or so, then a paid extension. The gallery stays up for longer, and after that you can pay to keep it live or to have the files retrieved. Reasonable, and worth knowing the fee before you need it rather than after.
- "Lifetime" or "forever" hosting. Read this as the lifetime of the business, because that is what it can mean. It is offered in good faith. It is not a guarantee anyone can actually make about a decade from now.
- Archived rather than deleted. The gallery link stops working but the files still exist on a drive somewhere, and a polite email can get them back. Common, rarely written down, and completely undiscoverable unless you ask.
Separately, and this is the part almost nobody asks about: the raw material, the unedited footage and the unculled photographs, is usually kept for far less time than the finished gallery. Sometimes weeks. If you think you might ever want it, ask early rather than in two years.
Whatever the policy turns out to be, treat it the same way. A guarantee is only as durable as the company making it, and the whole point of the thing you are storing is that it is supposed to outlive the company. That applies to us as much as to anyone else.
Why galleries expire at all
It is rarely malice and it is almost never a trick to sell you an upgrade. It is storage arithmetic.
A wedding produces a lot of data. A photographer shooting forty weddings a year is adding meaningful storage every single year, permanently, for a one-time fee they collected once. Ten years in, they are paying every month to host work for couples who paid them in 2016. The only ways that ends are expiry windows, paid extensions, or the studio quietly eating a cost that compounds forever.
Understanding that changes how you read the policy. A gallery is a delivery mechanism. It was built to get the files from them to you. It was never built to be the place the files live.
The five ways couples actually lose their wedding
In rough order of how often we hear about it:
- The link expired and nobody downloaded. The gallery arrived during the two busiest weeks of a couple's life, they looked at it on a phone, they meant to download it properly at the weekend, and the weekend was eleven months ago.
- The email is gone. The delivery link went to an address one of you no longer uses, or is buried under three thousand messages, and there was never a copy anywhere else.
- The vendor closed. Wedding businesses are small and the failure rate is real. When one closes, the gallery usually goes with it, and often with no notice, because a business winding down is not thinking about a 2019 client's hosting.
- The platform changed. Your vendor may still be trading, but the gallery service they used got acquired, changed its pricing, or shut down, and old galleries were the first thing cut.
- The one hard drive died. This is the version that hurts most, because the couple did everything right except the last step. A single external drive in a drawer is not a backup. It is one copy in a fragile box.
The twenty-minute checklist, to do the week it arrives
Not eventually. The week it arrives, while you still care and the link still works.
- Download everything at the highest resolution offered. Not the web-sized set, not a phone-screen copy of the film. Take the full-resolution photographs and the highest-quality video file the vendor makes available. If there is a "download all" button, use it, and if the archive is large, do it on a laptop plugged into power on real wifi.
- Put it somewhere with a real name. A single folder, dated, with both your names. Not "Downloads". You are naming it for a version of you that is looking for it in 2041.
- Copy it to a second place immediately. Not later. While you are still sitting there.
- Screenshot or save the delivery email itself. It carries the vendor name, the date, and the link, which is the only trail back to them if you ever need a replacement.
- Tell one other person where it is. A parent, a sibling, whoever handles the practical things. Single points of failure include you.
Backups, in plain English
The rule archivists use is three copies, on two different kinds of storage, with one of them somewhere else. You do not need to think about it that formally. You need three things:
- The copy on your computer. The one you actually look at.
- A cloud copy. Any of the mainstream consumer services is fine. The point is not which one, it is that it is not in your house.
- A physical copy you keep somewhere else. An external drive at a parent's house is perfect. Drives fail, so this is not the safety net on its own, but a fire or a burglary does not care how good your local backup was.
Once every couple of years, open the folder and play the film. That is the whole maintenance routine, and it catches the silent failure where a drive has quietly become unreadable while you assumed it was fine.
File formats that will still open
You do not need to be technical about this, you need to avoid two specific traps.
- Take a normal MP4 of your film. H.264 in an MP4 container is the most universally readable video format that has ever existed, and it will open on anything for a very long time. If your vendor offers a higher-quality option in the same container, take that one.
- Take JPEGs of the photographs. If your photographer also offers the RAW files, keep them if you like, but never let RAW be your only copy. RAW formats are camera-manufacturer specific and need particular software. JPEG is the format that will still open with no effort.
- Be suspicious of anything that only opens in a viewer. If the film can only be watched inside a proprietary player, a branded app, or an online gallery, that is not a copy you own. Get a plain file.
- A streamed video is not a downloaded video. Being able to watch your film on a page is not the same as holding it. Check that you have a file on disk.
Questions to ask before you book
These belong in the same conversation as price and coverage hours, and virtually nobody asks them.
- How long is my gallery guaranteed to stay online, and is that in the contract? A number in writing, not a reassurance in an email.
- Do I get full-resolution downloads, or only web-sized ones? Some packages hold back the full files as a later upsell. Better to know now.
- What happens to my files if you close the business? The good answer is that you already have your own copies and they are not needed. Watch how they react to being asked.
- How long do you keep the raw footage or the unedited photographs? Usually much shorter than the gallery, sometimes weeks. If you want that material, ask early, not two years later.
- Do you charge to re-send or restore a delivery? Many do, which is fair, but it should not be a surprise.
- What file format and resolution will the film actually be? See above.
If your gallery has already expired
Ask anyway, and ask kindly. Expired does not always mean deleted. At a lot of studios the expiry is a policy line rather than an automatic delete, and the files are still sitting on a drive. A short, friendly email with your names and your wedding date frequently gets the link reissued.
If the business has closed, try the individual photographer or filmmaker rather than the company. People carry their own archives between jobs more often than you would think.
The short version
Assume every gallery is temporary, ours included. Download everything the week it lands, keep three copies in two places, take plain MP4 and JPEG files, and open the folder once every couple of years.
It is the cheapest insurance in the entire wedding, and it is the only part of the day that is still entirely in your hands after everyone has gone home.
Our delivery timeline and what happens between the wedding and the film is in how long it takes to get your wedding video. Our work is at cinematic wedding films and wedding photography, and every number is on the pricing page.
Common questions
How long do wedding photographers keep your photos?
It varies enormously and it is usually shorter than couples assume. Online galleries are commonly set to stay live somewhere between a month and a year after delivery, and the original files are often kept for a shorter period than the gallery. Almost no wedding contract promises to host your files permanently, so the download you make yourself is the copy that lasts.
How long do wedding videographers keep raw footage?
Usually much less time than the finished gallery, and sometimes only weeks. Raw footage is enormous compared with a delivered film, so it is the first thing a studio clears off its drives. If you think you may ever want the unedited material, ask for it early. Asking two years later is usually too late, and there is often a fee for retrieval even when the answer is yes.
What happens to my wedding photos if my photographer goes out of business?
Usually the gallery goes with the business, often without notice. If you have already downloaded and backed up the files, nothing happens to you at all. If you have not, contact the individual photographer rather than the company, as people frequently keep their own archives after a studio closes.
What is the best way to back up wedding photos and video?
Three copies, on two kinds of storage, with one of them outside your house. In practice: the folder on your computer, a mainstream cloud service, and an external drive left at a relative's. Open the folder and play the film once every couple of years, which is what catches a drive that has quietly failed.
What file format should my wedding video be in?
H.264 video in an MP4 container is the most universally readable format there is and will open on almost anything for a long time. For photographs, keep JPEGs as your guaranteed-readable copy, and treat RAW files as an extra rather than your only version. Avoid anything that can only be opened inside a proprietary player or an online gallery.
