Photo sharing app Shoto launches new feature for weddings and events

We all know that tying the knot can drive even the most sane person, well insane. Down to the last detail, everything has to be near-perfect on that day, including the music, the location, the photographers and the much-debated guest list. And yet, the most daunting task of picking out all of the photographs for the album comes after the wedding. This is because, at the end of the day, you want to pick out all the images that highlight the best moments from the day. From the happy tears as you walked down the aisle, to the moments that just got weird as you closed out the night.

However, what about the moments photographers don’t capture, ones of your divorced uncle and his ex-wife reliving the magic they once had by slow dancing together, or the video your best friend’s date took of his emotional toast? What happens when your photographer has their back turned during something you just don’t want to forget?

Photo sharing app Shoto is trying to solve just this. With the launch of its newest feature for wedding and events, the app is tapping into the power of AI and Machine Learning, streamlining the process of collecting photos and videos taken by family, friends and photographers during special occasions.

It seems the app’s developers understand just how painstaking capturing memories from the wedding and putting them into one file for everyone to view has always been for brides, grooms, family and friends. As a result, Shoto’s developers have made the app friendly and simple to use with the creation of event hashtags.

I downloaded the app and created a fake event hashtag, to see how the app worked. Using a personalized hashtag ‘#JeffsFakeWedding,’ which Shoto automatically prompts its users to do once they create an event, I had a few friends upload photos using the hashtag. Minutes later, my mock wedding album was complete with photos of myself (sadly not in a tux), and my friend’s silly musings.

While it isn’t unheard of for couples to create event hashtags for their wedding, what is nice about Shoto’s Wedding and Events feature is that one hashtag can pull photos from multiple social media platforms. So now, with Shoto’s use of its proprietary technology, photos from Twitter and Instagram are brought together into a centralized location, and organized into a shareable album. Event organizers can even control who sees specific images and which ones remain private for the bride and groom themselves.

Shoto ultimately lets all guests live out their dreams of becoming a photographer, by contributing to the ‘unofficial’ wedding album, and purchasing prints from professional photographers in attendance who also contribute images to the album.

If Shoto hopes to make technology a household name in the wedding and event planning scene, it faces a few challenges. Convincing people that ditching messaging platforms like Tango and Telegram to send photos and videos, or even those who like to take a more traditional approach, uploading photos to a USB or CD, won’t be a simple feat.

Want to test out Shoto at your wedding or upcoming event? You can download the app on iOS or Android.