Top 10 Dos and Don'ts for Ordering Your Wedding Albums
Julia and Carlos’ Watermill Long Island wedding album full page spread. © Dan Wagner 2023
Waiting too long to order your prepaid wedding album may lead to not getting an album or higher costs. Yes you read this correctly. Most wedding contracts specify that a bride and groom must submit their wedding album photo selects list within a specified time frame such as one year. The reasons for this are to encourage couples not to procrastinate, to help the photographer get the albums done during the wedding off-season, and most importantly to not let the photographer’s contractual obligation to supply the paid for album expire.
Yes, you read that correctly. It’s not unheard of for couples to contact their wedding photographer years after the wedding with their album photo selection list. When this happens, the photographer may not be contractually obligated to provide the album(s), the style of album specified may no longer be available, and/or the album costs may be higher. Being too busy to get the photo selection task done shortly after the wedding is on the bride and groom.
Why do some couples find it so difficult to choose which photos they want in their albums? Great question. Before the days of digital photography, couples would usually receive a print of every wedding photo. Having a print of each photo made it very easy to physically organize which photos to include in the wedding album. On the back of each print was a number. So all the couple had to do was give the photographer a numbered list. Easier yet, they could lend the photographer the actual prints.
When film was king, photographers generally shot 200-500 wedding photos. Today, photographers can shoot 3,000 or more digital wedding photos. Making a wedding album photo selection list from such a large number of photos is much harder. Understandably, many couples become overwhelmed. What they need, and are seldom given is a plan for making it easier to choose their wedding album selects.
Here’s a plan with dos and don’t that will help you understand the wedding album creation process, and make it much easier for you to select wedding photos.
Top 10 Dos and Don’ts for Ordering Your Wedding Albums
Do select fewer photos if possible. Wedding album pages are called sides. A wedding album with 20 spreads has 40 sides. And a 20-spread album is a good size for telling your wedding story. While single image spreads and pages have greater visual appeal, you need pages with multiple photos so you can include all the getting ready, bridal party, and family shots. Single image pages are for the hero shots of the bride and groom.
Don’t forget it’s your wedding album. A 40-side couple’s wedding album will often include up to 70 photos. Less is more—so if you can live with 50-60 photos, so much the better. To avoid the inevitable comments of, “why wasn’t I included in your album,” you can order some 5x7” framed prints to display before the people who might take offense at not being included visit. Try to think of this as being considerate, and not dishonest. After all, it’s your wedding album!
Do give your photographer a sequential photo list. After processing and editing each wedding photo, I rename with the couple’s first name initials and a four-digit consecutive number in the order the photos were shot. (When shooting with multiple cameras I always time-synch each camera.) So, all the couple needs to do is give me a list of the photos in the order they want them to appear.
Do select your favorite photos. These days, most people have access to image editing/ordering software. The software allows them to make a photo gallery of their favorite wedding photos. The next step is to edit the favorites down to the number of photos they want in the wedding album. It’s often a good idea to make a copy of the wedding photo folder. By doing this, you can simply delete the photos you don’t want in the album.
Don’t worry about selecting background photos. Once you give the photographer your wedding photo select list, the photographer will add ten or more photos that they specifically shot for use as background photos. Such photos might be closeups of flowers, shots of the wedding venue, soft-focus photos, photos of the sky, and anything that might look nice as a background to superimpose your photo selects on.
Do appreciate all the time and effort spent on your wedding albums. The next step is for the photographer to make additional color corrections, special treatments, and retouching as needed. All this is a lot of work, and explains the high cost of getting custom photo albums.
Do hire a photographer who designs their own albums! With all the ingredients (photos) ready, it’s now time to design your custom photo albums. Photographers can now add borders, drop-shadows, over-lapping, and other design elements. The beauty of all this is that every album will be a unique expression of the photographer’s vision and yours. This is why hiring photographers who design their albums is far superior to hiring a large photo studio that uses freelancers to design albums. There’s a huge disconnect that happens when the designer is not the creator of the images. Why? Because on your wedding day, I’m constantly thinking and shooting with your wedding album in mind—and for this reason I’m very excited about bringing my vision to life. I’m invested in our mutual success!
Don’t forget you can make one round of changes to your wedding album design. Can changes be made to the wedding album design before printing? Yes! After designing the wedding album I send 72 dpi (smaller version) photos of each album page/spread to the couple for approval and changes. Once the changes are made, we repeat the process a final time. Once the album is approved it goes into production and is delivered with 2 months or less.
Do “strike while the iron’s hot when it comes to selecting wedding album photos. In the case of wedding photo albums, the expression “strike while the iron’s hot,” means that you should give the photographer your photo select list while your wedding photos are as fresh as possible in the photographer’s mind and yours.
Don’t share your preliminary wedding album designs with others. Try not to show the wedding album design to third-parties, unless you wish to be burdened with having to satisfy their desires and not yours. Remember, too many cooks spoil the broth!
There Are So Many Styles of Wedding Albums to Choose From!
Yes, there are indeed too many styles of wedding albums to choose from! Like wedding photography, everyone wants to jump into the wedding photography album business. Like so many industries, there used to be two or three main players that manufactured all the wedding albums on Long Island. Today, Long Island wedding photography studios will source wedding albums from countries as far away as Australia and further.
It’s great to have options. Hopefully, this plethora of wedding photo album companies will all survive. One reason we want them to do well is that by the time your wedding album goes into production, they’re still in business. Naturally, you don’t want to have the album style you fell in love with become no longer available. Worse yet, suppose your album arrives with imperfections and has to be reprinted. Although rare, it does happen. Therefore, it’s worth asking your photographer if they have confidence in their album manufacturer’s longevity. Clearly, the photographer is responsible for offering you satisfactory alternatives.
One thing couples really like about the multitude of wedding album options is being able to select different types of album covers. You can get leather, faux leather, wood, acrylic, metal, and other album material covers. Personally, I recommend leather over faux leather because it’s more durable. With some faux leathers, scrapes to the surface will reveal a different colored sub-surface. And while acrylic covers can look cool, care should be taken to avoid scratches. Very Important—to avoid fading and other damages, please don’t store your albums in direct sunlight.
Stay tuned for more Long Island wedding photography blog articles!
“Dan Wagner was the best money spent on our wedding. He was nice, professional and did a great job. He took great candid photos—which I love. Not only did we get every picture he took, but the photos were full size and without any writing on them, and they arrived just a few days after we came back home from our honeymoon. We got to choose many pictures for our album. Because everything was digital, he e-mailed me exactly what the layout of the album would be before it was printed, and I was able to make changes. Our album was the nicest I have seen, and everyone who has seen it wishes they had hired him.”
—Genevieve and William
Every Bride and Groom Deserve Beautiful Wedding Albums!
Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences about ordering wedding photo albums in the comment box below. Have a wonderful wedding, and many thanks for visiting my Long Island wedding photographer blog!