What the slideshow is for
A memorial slideshow gives everyone a few minutes to simply look — at a whole life, gathered in one place. During the service it usually plays in the moment of reflection, set to music, while no one has to speak. At the reception it can play on a quiet loop instead, giving guests something to stand beside and talk about.
Two things make a slideshow good: photographs chosen with care, and a file that plays the moment someone presses play. This guide covers both, and the second matters more than most people expect.
How long, and how many photographs
The arithmetic is simple: each photograph holds the screen for about seven or eight seconds, so one song carries roughly thirty photographs.
- For the service — three to five minutes is right: one or two songs, thirty to sixty photographs. Longer than that, and the room's attention begins to drift from remembering.
- For the reception — a loop can hold a hundred photographs or more, because guests come and go from it.
If the family has gathered two hundred photographs, that is a gift — keep them all for the reception loop, and choose the strongest thirty or so for the service.
Choosing the photographs
- Span the whole life. Childhood, youth, and the recent years all belong; a slideshow that shows only the last decade tells a shorter story than the one that was lived.
- Mostly roughly in order. Loosely chronological is easiest to follow, and the gentle movement through time is part of what makes it moving.
- Mix the formal with the candid. The wedding portrait matters — and so does the one of them laughing at the kitchen table. The candid ones are usually the ones people talk about afterwards.
- Include the people they loved. Guests look for themselves and for each other; photographs of the person alone need company from photographs of them together.
- Old prints — a phone photograph of a print, taken flat by a bright window with no flash, is usually clearer than a hurried scan. One person doing all of them keeps the results even.
The music
One or two pieces are enough for a service slideshow. A song they loved is the natural first choice; if their favourite feels too heavy or too bright for the room, an instrumental version of it often sits exactly right. Let the music decide the length — end the photographs where the song ends, rather than fading it mid-phrase.
Making sure it plays on the day
Almost everything that goes wrong with a slideshow goes wrong in the last step, and all of it is preventable a day ahead:
- Export a plain video file. Finish the slideshow as an ordinary video (an MP4) rather than a project that needs its own app, an account, or an internet connection to open. A video file plays on anything.
- Never rely on the venue's internet. Nothing on the day should stream. The file lives on the machine that will play it.
- Bring it two ways. On a USB stick and on a laptop or phone that can connect to the screen. If one fails, the other is already in the room.
- Test it in the room. Ask the venue for ten minutes the day before, or arrive early: play it on their screen, from your USB stick, with the sound up. This one rehearsal removes nearly every surprise.
- Name the person who presses play. Someone a step outside the immediate family, so no one grieving is watching cables. They should know the cue, the volume, and what to do if the screen sleeps.
When you are ready
A slideshow usually takes the reflection moment in the order of events — if you are planning the service itself, our guide to planning an order of service shows where it sits. Solace Paper is preparing memorial slideshow templates with the same care as the rest of the collection — designed to export cleanly and play anywhere. The collection opens soon at our Etsy shop.