Congrats — You’re getting married! You hired an amazing photographer, sure, but don’t you want to be able to see the photos that your friends are taking while you’re schmoozing with with your family? Thanks to the internet and a few minutes of prep work, you can! Here’s what you’ll need:

• A Dropbox account. If you don’t have one, you can sign up for free by clicking here.
• An IFTTT account. Sign up here, and I’ll explain this in a moment!
• An Instagram account. If you have a smartphone, you should be able to download the app for free from your App Store.

1. Head over to IFTTT and add your Dropbox Channel. You can do this by visiting the Channels page, searching for Dropbox, then entering your login credentials.

2. Do the same for your Instagram channel!

3. At this point, you’ll have the option to turn on your first “recipe,” or an automation created with a specific outcome in mind. What this recipe will do is take all photos posted to Instagram that include a certain hashtag, then save them automatically to your Dropbox account!

Here’s a link to the recipe directly.

If you’re having trouble choosing a hashtag, I’d recommend something short, like #JimAndNancyWed, or #101715Wedding. The fewer the characters, the better, and you’ll want to be sure that you choose something that someone else isn’t using, otherwise you’ll get all of THEIR photos, too!

4. Let’s try it out! Take a picture of you and your significant other and announce your hashtag to the world on your Instagram account. Try including it in the caption of your photo to ensure that people see it.

5. Now log into your Dropbox account to see it there!

Pretty cool, right? Now you’ll have the ability to automatically save everything that your friends and family post to Instagram so you can remember them forever. 

Have any questions about any of this? Leave a comment or find me on social media (links below). I’d be happy to help!