Recently, I’ve been receiving a number of inquiries from both brides & grooms as well as other photographers (presumably those who are new to the wedding photography industry) regarding the weddings albums that I create for my couples. Questions ranging from “do I design my own albums? (yes). To “what does the finished product look like?” (see below, but only after reading this please and thank-you!). Because of this, I thought that I would share one of my favourite weddings from this past year in Calgary featuring Shevaun and Derek, and which I created my own sample album to show off to my prospective clients in my studio.
In all of my wedding collections, I include a wedding album for all my couple’s. Does this cost me a bit more? Yes. Do I make less as a result? Probably. Then why do it? Simple. When it comes down to the digital era of photography, it’s far far too easy to simply say “I’ll just take the disc of images and make prints and albums myself”.
“Hey TLAW, prove it!” Ok I will…just let me find my own wedding album. Err. Where did I put it…shoot, I know it was…oh right. I didn’t get one! Terra and I have been married for almost 5 years now and we have no album of our wedding day. Everything is still on disc. And here’s the really scary part…I have no idea where the disc is! I know it’s in the house somewhere…but where?! We haven’t even looked at our wedding photos for almost 4 years because of this. And let’s face it, digital storage media like DVDs aren’t made to last an eternity. They get scratched, bent, mistakenly used as a drink coaster, or simply lost. To be fair to the disc, I do have the images backed up on to my mirrored server so I do know where I can find them once I decide to build an album for us, but how many of you have RAIDed servers to rely on? And in case you’re curious, I back up all of my sessions on this same server as well as to multiple off-site top-secret locations – I make sure I never lose anything so you know I’ll always have a copy of your images when I photograph you.
Anyways, I digress. I include an album in every single wedding collection, unless I’ve been asked explicitly to remove it (I do customize my wedding collections – but I shed a tear when that happens *sniff sniff*). Having an album in your hand is a beautiful thing to see. It gives you something to hold on to, to hug, to touch, something tangible to caress. Imagine if the picture of your beloved grandparents was only available in digital format? You wouldn’t be able to hold, hug and caress that image. I suppose you could hug your computer monitor…but you’re not weird…are you?
As much as you think you might not want that album, I promise you, when you look at your album 40 years from today, with the beautiful wedding moments that I have captured for you (shameless plug), you’ll be incredibly happy you did. Future generations will look at that album as the beginning of your legacy. I speak from unfortunate personal experience.
Please enjoy the sample album I created featuring the beautiful Calgary wedding of my now good friends Shevaun & Derek. I invite you into my studio to come and see the real thing in person. Just send me an email, or give me a call. I’d love to have a coffee and homemade cupcake with you.
by tlaw
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