Why do you need a wedding album?
Maybe you think that having a printed version of your wedding photos is not that important. You don’t know where to put that big book or wall print. It’s too expensive, takes up too much space, nobody cares and you can easily share and look those photos on your phone… but what will happen in 10-20 years?
Let me start with my personal story.
Our quick, and cheap courthouse wedding was documented by one of our friend, who handed us the digital files so we can do whatever we want with them. My husband and I are both very creative minded people, so we wanted to do something over the top, and special with the photos. Photoshop filters and textures were pretty hot in 2008 so we applied them to all of our images. We thought it looked pretty awesome! But even though I was planning on decorating our home with them, we never actually did it. Then it was time for me to have my green card interview, and I was asked to bring some photos from our wedding day. So we printed the best ones out and created an album. We were very proud of all the floral frames and heavy filters. After the successful interview I put the album on our shelf.
8 years later we are laughing at our silly photoshopped wedding pictures, but it’s not a big deal because I can just go back to my original files and reprint them, right?
But I can’t find them! Our wedding pictures disappeared from the hard drive! All we have is that album we made for my interview. It’s still sitting on the shelf, just the way we left it. And even with those funny effects, the photos inside are priceless. Because the digital files got lost!
Lesson one: Don’t get caught up on trends too much when it comes to your wedding, they will look silly 5-10 years later.
Lesson two: Print! Print! Print! Have a printed version of your most important photos! Those albums are timeless, durable and they will last forever. Your children and grandchildren will be flipping those pages long after you are gone.
Who knows what will happen with the digital photos. They can get lost, deleted, broken, corrupted, or just simple get out of date. #technologychanges
I strongly believe wedding albums are very important, and every professional photographer should offer them as part of their service. Because you don’t have time to put one together and digital photos will just sit on your computer for years. Also photographers use professional printer labs that produce strong, high quality album books. You don’t want the images to get faded or the pages to get ripped. Those books are for your families next generation, not only for yourself.
However, I believe having a digital version as a backup of your wedding photos is just as important. So you can share them to your family and friends. Post them on social media or make copies for your grandparents.
