Finish the Wedding Photo Book You Started

A muse can find the wedding photos scattered across your accounts, gather the full set in one place, lay them out into a finished photo book, and remind you to order it.

What it does

Most wedding photo books stall the same way. The photos live in several places at once: a photographer's gallery, a cloud account, a phone, and the shots guests sent afterwards. Picking the set and laying out dozens of pages is a weekend of work, so the book sits half done while the prints never get ordered. A muse can do the gathering and the laying out. It searches the accounts you connect for the wedding set, which can run to hundreds of photos, pulls them into one collection, and sets aside exact duplicates. Then it lays the book out in the order of the day, from getting ready to the last dance, and builds the full set of pages for your review. When the layout is ready, it sets a reminder so the finished book actually gets ordered instead of stalling again at the last step.

How to use it

1. Name the date and the places the photos live. Start with one account, such as your cloud photos, before adding more.
2. Say: "Find every photo from this date, gather them into one collection, and set aside exact duplicates. Do not delete anything."
3. Review the gathered set. Add any photos the muse could not reach, such as a guest's album, and remove shots you do not want in a book.
4. Ask for the layout: "Lay these out as a photo book in the order of the day. Keep pages simple, one big photo on the important pages."
5. Look through every page slowly. Swap any photo that is blurry or unflattering, fix any caption, and only then order the book yourself.

What you need

• Access to the accounts where the wedding photos are stored
• The wedding date, to set the search
• A photo book service account if you want to order a printed copy

What to watch for

• The best shot of a key moment may sit on a relative's phone, outside every account you connect. Ask around before you call the set complete.
• Check the whole book page by page before ordering. A printed book costs real money, and a wrong photo on the big page is the mistake that matters.
• These are private family photos. Connect one account at a time, review what the muse can see, and cut off access when the book is done.