Wedding guide
A screen at the reception that fills up with your guests' photos as the night goes on is one of the easiest ways to get everyone sharing. This guide covers what you need, the three ways to connect a TV, and what to test at the venue before the day.
A classic wedding slideshow is a video put together in advance, usually from childhood and engagement photos, and played once. A live slideshow is different: it shows the photos guests take during the reception, a few seconds after they send them, and keeps going all night.
MomentBeam calls this a photo wall. Instead of one photo after another, photos are placed into a layout you design — from 1 to 50 slots, as a grid, a ready-made template, or freeform over a background — and they rotate through that layout during the evening. New arrivals show up right away, so guests see their own photo land on the screen.
Whichever you choose, the screen is paired to one wall and then runs on its own. You can unpair it from your phone whenever you like.
Install MomentBeam from the App Store on the Apple TV and open it. The screen shows a six-character pairing code. Enter or scan that code from your MomentBeam account on your phone, choose the wedding wall, and the screen connects. This is the tidiest option when there is a TV with a free HDMI input you can plug a box into for the night.
On a laptop connected to the TV or projector by HDMI, or on a TV stick with a browser, open momentbeam.com/display. It shows a pairing code that you claim from your phone the same way. This suits venues that already have a projector and a laptop set up for speeches, and it is the most useful backup to have in your pocket.
From the Screens tab in the MomentBeam web app, in a Cast-capable browser such as Chrome, pick the wall and choose to cast to a nearby TV, then select your Chromecast or Google TV. Cast needs your device and the TV on the same network, and some venue networks stop devices from seeing each other. Check this at the venue, and keep the browser option ready if Cast cannot find the TV.
Choose how many photos are on screen at once. For a TV seen from across a room, a few large slots read better than a dense grid.
With approval on, nothing reaches the screen until you release it from your phone or browser. Ask a friend or your planner to watch the queue during dinner so you do not have to.
Put it on the tables and show it on the screen early in the evening. Guests upload from the browser, so there is nothing for them to install.
Connect the Apple TV, browser, or Cast device you will actually use, on the venue's network, and choose the wedding wall.
Upload a few photos, approve them, and watch them land on the screen. Then leave it running and check it again before guests arrive.
MomentBeam puts guest photos on the big screen at the reception: QR upload with no guest app, an approval queue you control, and a layout that looks designed, on Apple TV, in any browser, or with Google Cast.
FAQ
No. MomentBeam has a native Apple TV app, but any browser that can open the display link works too — a laptop connected by HDMI or a TV stick — and so does a Chromecast or Google TV on the same network.
Yes. Connect a laptop to the projector, open the display link in its browser, and pair it with your wall. A Chromecast plugged into the projector works as well.
The screen keeps showing the photos it already has and picks up new ones when the connection comes back. Guests can keep uploading over mobile data in the meantime.
Yes. With approval on, every upload waits in a queue until you release it from your phone or browser. For a small group you trust, you can turn approval off.
Your layout decides: anywhere from 1 to 50 slots. Photos rotate through the slots during the evening, and new arrivals appear right away.
No. Guests scan a QR code and upload from the browser on iPhone or Android, with no app, account, email, or password.