WEDDING ALBUMS

I’ve really been thinking of albums lately and how important they really are and why you should get one for your wedding or session.

We live in the generation of digital everything.  We take selfies, videos of our pets doing crazy things, and our kids know to smile when we put the phone up to snap their picture because they are too cute to miss this moment!  Crazy that our phones are no longer just phones.  Ah, I remember when cell phones first came out….  wait, I’m telling my age.  I digress…

Here are a few reasons why you should consider bringing back albums in your life and let your photographer help in the process.

FAMILY MEMORIES
My daughter was getting ready to move into my childhood home with my father while she goes to college due to her commute.  So I had to prepare her room (my sister’s old room – mine is an office now.. ha)  The closet had become a storage place for all kinds of things.  Don’t get me wrong, it was very organized but I knew I needed to go through it because a lot of it was childhood report cards and such.  My sister and I stumbled upon my parent’s wedding album. It was like we hit a gold mine.  We stopped everything that we were doing to go through the book and started to ask my father questions about different things in the images.  We came upon other albums that had birthday parties, vacations, and just everyday life.  There is something about slowing down a second and giving our direct attention to these little pieces of our lives.  We took turns deciding who would get the loose photos that were not in albums for our own albums at home.  It actually makes me smile when I think back to this day.  It was such a blessing to have those pictures.  (John Mayer’s “Stop this Train” just happened to be playing on my pandora while I was writing this section.  Perfect timing!)

PROFESSIONAL LAYOUT
That moves me to the next point.  A professional photographer is going to know what images and what the placement of those images in your album looks best and flows well with your wedding story.  Of course, they need to send you a proof before anything is printed to ensure that an important image to you is not missed.  But you can go on and live your newlywed days with your spouse while your photographer does the work of stitching together your wedding story.  Then it gets delivered to you like the best present in the world!

PRINT QUALITY
My wedding book has been displayed on my end table for all this time and I still have friends sit and look through them.  I get to talk with them about our day and it makes me feel all gooey inside thinking about all the emotions I felt and how much fun we had getting to celebrate with our friends and family.  This book is good but it is not printed on quality photo paper, but on just regular paper and is really just not a lifetime album.  Now that I am a pro at designing and selecting images, it did not take long to know that a new album is in order.  I had a wedding book not an album and it was time for one that is worthy of my living room.

LASTING HEIRLOOM
Disks, USB’s, and computer drives don’t last forever.  Some photographers, like us, offer a personal online gallery that is stored for 10 years.  I love this option!  But 50 years from now, I promise your family would love to be given your wedding album.  My husband’s grandmother had just a few pictures of her when she was married and it really was so awesome to see! Your wedding album is an heirloom that will be passed down from generation to generation.

DO YOU HAVE TIME FOR THAT?
After my wedding dust settled almost 8 years ago, I started to think about what I wanted to do for an album.  I like to do everything myself so of course, I scoured the internet looking at all of my options.  This probably took me a good two weeks just to decide where I wanted to get it printed.  Finally settling on a very well known, do it yourself picture company, I started the process.  I remember trying to figure out which images to pick and did a selection process that took days.  Then I started to add them.  Well, first off, this was seven plus years ago and their editor program was not the best.  A very long story short, I finally got all the images I wanted and ready to print THREE months later.  Way too long of a process!  I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she told me that she didn’t make her album till almost 2 years after her wedding.  She struggled with the same thing I did.

AND THE COST
I know that some of you are thinking… yeah but the cost.  Luckily, there are so many budget friendly, high quality albums out there.  A lot of photographers will include a base wedding album in their collections or packages.  This usually gives you the best deal possible.  Of course, anything can always be upgraded, but an album from your photographer will be the quality and durability that you are looking for.  This is their job and they want to give you the best.  You picked your photographer because you wanted this day captured.  Why let it live on a disk or USB.  It wants to be shared.

Woah,  I didn’t realize I was going to write a novel.  🙂  Thanks for sticking it out with me.  I hope you found value in this and can see the importance of an album whether for a wedding or for your session.  I think I will add photos soon of my parent’s album and my own.  Be on the look out!

Cindy Medick
972.822.7780
hello@cindymedickphotography.com
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