The Holy Supper, the liturgy at midnight.
One gallery, every calendar.
This page is for the household that hosts Christmas on the seventh of January, and for the family that keeps it far from where it started. Ukrainian families sit down to Sviata Vecheria at the first star on the sixth, with the didukh in the corner, twelve meatless dishes and kutia passed first. Russian families end the Nativity fast with sochivo on Sochelnik and go to the all-night vigil. Serbian families bring the badnjak into the house on Badnji dan and break the česnica to see who finds the coin. Ethiopian families walk to church in white for Genna, and Coptic families fill the churches for the midnight liturgy before the fata at home. Some Ukrainian parishes and families now keep the twenty-fifth of December instead, and in many families both dates are kept, in different houses. Whichever you keep, the same thing happens: the relatives are in three countries, the fast is ending at three different hours, and the photos of the supper are scattered across every phone at the table. One QR code brings them together.
One-time. No account needed to buy — about a minute.
The moments guests actually photograph at Orthodox Christmas gatherings
Why Orthodox Christmas gatherings work better on Picsui
Written for the person hosting this one, and checked against what the product actually does.
The Holy Supper streamed to the family who kept the fast alone
Somebody is always missing from the table on the sixth: a grandmother who could not travel, a son working abroad, a family that could not cross a border this year. Live Broadcast carries the first star, the blessing and the passing of the kutia to them on a private link with sound, at the hour the family sits down.
The blessing and the carols, in the voices that sang them
The prayer before the supper and the kolyadky at the door are sung, not photographed. The voice guestbook records up to 60 seconds at a time, so the grandfather's blessing over the table and the carollers on the doorstep survive as sound, next to the photos, for the year the family cannot all be there.
Both dates, both houses, one gallery
Many families now keep Christmas twice, once on the twenty-fifth of December with one side and again on the seventh of January with the other. Sub-events put each supper and each liturgy in its own section under one code, so the relatives abroad see the whole season in order without choosing a calendar.
No app. No account. One scan.
Guests point their camera at a QR code and are uploading in seconds. Nobody installs anything, nobody creates a login, and the grandparents can do it as easily as the teenagers.
unlimited photo and video uploads
Every guest can send as much as they like: phone photos, iPhone HEICs, short videos, up to a fair-use bound of 25 GB per event. Originals are kept at full resolution.
Broadcast it to the people who couldn't come
A private live broadcast is included with the Event Pass: stream up to 90 minutes to 100 viewers on a private link, with sound, and keep the recording afterwards.
Voice messages
Guests record up to 60 seconds of audio right from the upload page: a blessing, a toast, a story. It is saved next to the photos in the same gallery.
Several days, one gallery
Multi-day celebrations get sub-events under one code, so the rehearsal, the ceremony and the brunch stay organised but reachable from a single link.
Full-resolution downloads
Download any photo, or the whole event as one archive, at original quality. What guests uploaded is what you keep — no compression, no watermark on paid events.
How it works
Set up in a minute. Collect for the whole event.
Create the event to run from the eve on the sixth through the seventh, and add a sub-event for each house or each date if the family keeps more than one.
Print the QR code on a card for the supper table and a second for the hall after the liturgy, and send the link to the relatives abroad with the time you will sit down.
Guests upload through the supper and after church, and record the blessing and the carols as voice notes. Start Live Broadcast before the first star for the family who could not come.
Download the originals after the feast and send the gallery link to every household, on either calendar, that shared the season.
Try uploading as a guest.
Scan this with your phone the way a guest at your event would. Choose a sample photo and upload it from your browser, then open the demo gallery to see it land. Photos pass a quick AI check first; videos wait for a person.
- Scan the code with your phone camera — it opens straight in the browser.
- Upload a sample photo. Look for the upload confirmation so you know it reached the host.
Use a sample you are comfortable sharing with Picsui. Please keep personal or sensitive photos out of the demo.
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This is the same kind of code your guests scan at your event.
Getting the most from Orthodox Christmas gatherings
Put the code out before the first star, because once the family sits down for Sviata Vecheria or Badnje veče nobody is going to get up to find a card. Prop it against the kutia or the didukh, mention it once when the candle is lit, and ask one person to photograph the table set with its empty place before anyone touches it, since that is the photo the family abroad asks for every year. Ask another to record the blessing or the Otche nash as a voice note as it is said. The supper itself moves slowly and quietly, which suits phones on the table far better than a loud party does.
Ask the priest before you film anything inside the church, and respect the answer. Many parishes are glad to have photos of the vigil, the procession or the children with candles, and many prefer that phones stay in pockets during the liturgy itself; a gallery does not change that etiquette. The hall afterwards, the fata at a Coptic home, the Genna gathering outside the church at dawn, the carollers on the doorstep with their star, and the breaking of the fast at the table are all fair game, and are usually the photos everyone wants anyway. If the parish does stream its own liturgy, put that link in your welcome message rather than pointing a phone at the altar.
If your family is spread across countries and calendars, decide in advance which moments you will stream and tell the relatives the exact local time, because the first star in Toronto is the middle of the night in Kyiv, Belgrade or Addis Ababa. Start Live Broadcast a few minutes early with the phone on a stand at the end of the table so it can see the whole family and hear the prayer, and keep it running through the kutia and the first dishes. For the relatives asleep at that hour, the voice notes and photos wait in the gallery, and you can send the link with a short message on the seventh.
Common questions about Orthodox Christmas gatherings
Can family in Ukraine, Serbia or Ethiopia watch the Holy Supper live?
Yes. Live Broadcast is included with the Event Pass and streams up to 90 minutes with sound to as many as 100 viewers on a private link, and the person watching only needs a phone browser. That covers the lighting of the candle, the blessing, the kutia and a good stretch of the supper. Work out the time difference, send the link a few days ahead, and put the phone where it can hear the prayer rather than the kitchen.
Is it appropriate to take photos in church at the midnight liturgy?
That is for your priest and your parish to say, and the answer varies. Some parishes welcome photographs of the procession and the children; others ask for phones to stay away during the service itself. A gallery only changes where the photos go, not whether they should be taken, so ask beforehand and put the parish's wishes in the welcome message on the upload page. The hall afterwards, the walk home in the snow and the feast when the fast ends are the photos that usually matter most in any case.
Carollers we do not know came to the door. Can they upload their photos of us?
Yes, if you give them the code, and many families do, because the kolyadnyky with their star on the doorstep are a photo you will never take yourself. Anyone who scans the code can upload without an account. Turn on host review and their photos wait for you to approve before the family sees them, so a stranger's upload never surprises anyone. The gallery stays private to people with the link, and you can close uploads once the season ends.
We keep the seventh of January but my in-laws keep the twenty-fifth of December. One event or two?
One event, with each Christmas as a sub-event, keeps both suppers, both liturgies and both sets of grandparents in one gallery under one code, each in its own section, which is what the family abroad wants to see. Two separate events suit households that want their own galleries to share with their own relatives. The price is per event, so a family that shares one pays once for the whole season, however many calendars it spans.
My babushka reads only Cyrillic. Can she use the upload page?
The upload page is in English, Español, Français, and there is no Russian, Ukrainian or Serbian version of it. What she has to do, though, is tap one button and choose a photo from her camera roll, with nothing to read, install or sign up for, and a grandchild can scan the code for her once and leave the page open. You can write the welcome message at the top in Cyrillic so she knows what the page is, and the gallery link opens as a plain grid of photos that needs no language at all.
What does it cost for one Christmas?
An Event Pass is $29, paid once for the event with no subscription. It covers unlimited uploads from any number of relatives, the voice guestbook, host review, Live Broadcast for the family who could not travel, full-resolution downloads and 365 days of hosting, which carries the gallery through Old New Year and Theophany. There is no charge per guest, so a supper for eight and a parish hall of two hundred cost the same.
Every photo from Orthodox Christmas gatherings, in one place
One-time Event Pass, $29. No subscription, no per-guest fee.
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