How do I put a QR code on a wedding card?

The card is the easy part. The harder question is what the code should open, and that is further down.

Where does it go on the card?

The back of the invitation, bottom corner, is the safest place. An insert card is better still, because it gives the code room and keeps the invitation clean.

Do not put it on the front. Guests read the front, and a black square competes with the names. Do not put it over a pattern, a photo, a foil block or a gold border either. The code needs plain paper under it.

Keep it away from the fold. A code that sits on a crease will be creased in every card, and a crease across a code stops it reading.

How small can it be?

Three centimetres square is the floor for a card someone holds in their hand. Below that you are relying on a good camera and a steady hand.

The rule for anything further away is simpler. Divide the scanning distance by ten and that is your minimum code width. A card held at 30 cm needs about 3 cm. A welcome board read from three metres needs 30 cm.

If the designer wants it smaller for the layout, the answer is not a smaller code. Put less inside the code. A shorter link makes a simpler code, and a simpler code survives being small.

The white border is not spare space

Every QR code has a quiet zone around it. It is four modules wide on all four sides, and it is part of the code.

Designers crop it constantly. They trim the white to line the code up with the text block, or they run a border rule right up against it. A cropped quiet zone stops the code reading.

Tell the printer and the designer the same sentence. Nothing touches the white around the code, including the cut line.

What to send the printer

Send a vector file if you can. PDF, SVG or EPS, because a vector prints crisp at any size. If it has to be a raster, send a PNG of at least 1000 by 1000 pixels.

Never send a screenshot, and never send the code over WhatsApp as an image. Both throw away resolution, and a wedding card is where you notice.

Two more things the press will care about. Convert to CMYK before submitting, because an RGB black often prints as a muddy composite black and contrast is what a scanner reads. And ask for matt, not gloss, because gloss throws the flash straight back into the camera.

Test it before the run, not after

This is the step families skip, and it is the one that saves the reprint.

1. Print one card on the real stock, at the real size, from the real press.
2. Scan it indoors, in normal light, with the phone about 30 cm away.
3. Scan the same card on a second phone from a different maker.
4. Hand it to somebody over fifty and watch them try, without helping them.
5. Only then approve the run.

Step four matters more than it sounds. A code that needs a steady hand and a good angle will work for you and fail for half your guests.

What should the code open?

One code, one job. A code that opens a page with five choices on it is a code most guests close.

Three jobs are worth the space. Directions to the venue. A WhatsApp number for whoever is coordinating. The photographs afterwards. Pick the one you will keep updated.

If you use a dynamic code, you can change where it points after the cards are printed. That is worth doing for a wedding, because the venue link, the map pin and the album all change more often than anyone expects. The printed card stays the same and the destination moves.

The photographs, and why a PIN is the point

Most families are happy to share the venue on a card. Far fewer are happy to print a link to a wedding album that anyone holding the card can open.

That is the real objection to a QR on an invitation, and it is a reasonable one. A card gets photographed, forwarded and left on tables.

This is what our PIN-protected gallery is for. The photographs sit behind a PIN, and a scan gets a PIN prompt rather than the album. You give the PIN to the people you want to give it to.

Change your mind later and you can set a new PIN from your account. The printed cards keep working, and everyone still using the old PIN is locked out until you hand them the new one.

Be clear with yourself about what a PIN does and does not do. It controls who opens the gallery. It cannot stop a person who has opened it from taking a screenshot. The honest promise is that the album is not sitting open to whoever picks up a card.

Will a QR code on a wedding card look cheap?

It looks cheap when it is large, centred and on the front. It disappears when it is small, on the back or an insert, printed in the same ink as the text, with a one-line caption above it saying what it opens.

Can I change where the code points after the cards are printed?

With a dynamic code, yes. The card carries a short link that never changes, and you change what sits behind it. A static code bakes the destination into the squares and cannot be changed once printed.

Can guests see the wedding photos without the PIN?

No. A scan reaches a PIN prompt, not the gallery. Anyone you have not given the PIN to sees the prompt and nothing else.

Can somebody screenshot the gallery after they open it?

Yes. Once a person has the PIN and has opened the album, they can screenshot it like any other page. A PIN decides who gets in, not what they do afterwards.

What if the printer crops the white border around the code?

The code may stop reading. The white quiet zone is four modules wide on every side and is part of the code, not packaging around it. Say so on the artwork, and check it on the proof card.

Should the code open the album or the venue?

Before the wedding, directions. Afterwards, the photographs. A dynamic code lets the same printed card do both in turn, which is the strongest argument for using one on an invitation.

Before you order the cards

Pick the kind of code first. Static vs dynamic QR codes covers that in full, and the plans are on pricing.