Your Wedding Photo Album is More Important than you Realize

Wedding Photo Album - choices

A Wedding Photo Album is something that many brides choose at the last minute, after everything else has been done. Perhaps not literally, but it is not given the importance that perhaps it should. After all, it is one of the few things left after your wedding to remind you of it, so it surely deserves some consideration!

You have chosen your photographer, and most brides are then offered a number of albums to choose from. How do you choose? Is the choice of Wedding Photo Album as important as the choice of photographs that will go in it? That is up to you, and what you want to do with it. If your wedding album is to put into a drawer and never brought out again, as many are, then the album might as well be a brown paper bag to hold your photos.

Wedding Photo Album - memories

If, however, it is intended as a coffee table album that people can browse through when they come to visit, it will have to look good and be hard wearing. If it is to be brought out for selected visitors then it must also look reasonable, but can also be less hard wearing, with perhaps a silk cover or something else that you would not use for general use. The coffee table Wedding Photo Album has to look best of all, but must be the most practical, able to be cleaned easily, and even replaced easily if necessary.

Much also depends on whether you have the digital rights to your wedding photographs, or if they are on film. Apart from that you have two basic choices: to buy off the shelf or from a professional photographer. You will not get good flush or matte mounted albums from your local store. You will have to purchase from a professional, and probably also have them professionally mounted. That costs, but what price are you putting on your Wedding Photo Album that contains the memories of your wedding? It is not for the drawer, that is sure, and the professional albums are great for coffee tables. They really look the part, and will be a great way of showing off your wedding photographs.

Wedding Photo Album - cost

On the other hand, the store bought Wedding Photo Album with the slip in pockets or plain leaves that you have to glue your photographs to, can also look good, especially if you are a good calligrapher. Whichever you choose, make sure that the paper or board is acid-free, otherwise your photographs can discolor and eventually become very brittle.

Wedding albums can cost from under $20 to over $2,000, and you get what you pay for. A leather Wedding Photo Album is expensive, and your photographer will have a lot of work to do in mounting all your photos. You might even want some retouching done, and that is generally included. You generally have a choice of three presentations if you go for a professional album, and which you choose is dependant on your own preference.

Wedding Photo Album - tradition

The flush mounted Wedding Photo Album contains photographs that have been mounted right to the edge of the page, so that there is no mounting visible. The photograph is the same size of the page, but is mounted on a stiff board. The more traditional albums, on the other hand, are mounted within a matted card, the photograph contained within individual openings. This is the type with a matted border round the picture that most albums you might have seen will normally be like. The coffee table mounting is different altogether, and the photographs are on thinner paper. The wedding album is thin, just like a regular coffee table art book, with your photographs printed right on the glossy pages. If you have ever thumbed through a coffee table art book, it is just like that, but with your wedding photos instead of the pictures.

You can choose whichever you prefer, and should ask to see examples of all three before coming to a decision. The cover of the Wedding Photo Album is also important, and you can have the cover made from any material you want, even metal! However, don’t forget what is inside. That is what makes your album so special to you: your photographs. You have to decide early on if you want your photographer to take only the normal poses, or to carry out some photo-journalism during the course of the day. You can get some pretty funny photos taken that way, and these can make the difference between a traditional posed photo-album and one that gets the odd giggle as people browse through it. You should take the advice of your photographer here, but that can make all the difference to your wedding album.

Wedding Photo Album - arrangement

Finally, if your photos are digital, and you have the digital rights, you can easily design your Wedding Photo Album by arranging photographs on your pages as you want them, and then printing them out on high quality gloss or matt photo paper. You can have these bound into a traditional or coffee table album. A professional photographer can do this for you, or you can try one of the many sites online that specialize in this work. Most provide good work, and you should not be disappointed, but if you are, then you still have the files and can try again. That’s the advantage of digital rights.

Your Wedding Photo Album is more important than you possible imagined, and if you make the right choice having seen all the options, then you will have an album that suits your needs rather than you choosing just any old album because ‘it is not so important’. It is, and you will realize that later. Make the correct choice now.










Wedding Photo Album

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