Today on Monday Wedding Madness we will be discussing wedding albums. This is a question that I get asked quite a bit. Should I order a wedding album? Should I use my wedding photographer or should I save money and order my album on my own? Can I customize my wedding album with my photographer? How much are wedding albums?
Ordering a wedding album is a great way to showcase your favorite images from your wedding day. It is an excellent item that your family and friends can look at when they visit and it is a item that can be passed on to your children and grandchildren. Who doesn't love looking at family wedding photos? Especially if someone in the family is getting married.
An album is easier to flip through than having your friends and family sort through the thousands of images you received from your wedding photographer on a disc on your computer. I am a firm believer of printing your photos. You don't have to print every single image but do print some of your favorites. With an album you can have all of your favorite images in one place.
Now we come down to the cost of wedding albums. Wedding albums will run you anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars. I know it sounds like a lot, but the quality and durability of the album is what you are paying for here. You want your wedding album to last for decades and cheaper albums are not going to hold up.
Ordering your album through your photographer vs ordering it yourself. I am not going to go in to detail about print quality through a pro lab and print quality through a drugstore/online consumer merchant (I will be posting another blog on that subject soon) but a pro lab that your photographer uses produces better quality prints with true colors and resistant to fading, those drugstore prints do not. This is also true with albums. Your photographer will be able to get to a higher quality album than you would be able to order. Albums will differ between photographers so I am going to speak of the albums I offer my clients. My albums, which are through a pro lab, are stain and water resistant, rigged, layflat, with fully customizable pages and covers. Professional albums will come back without any barcodes or logos like drugstore and online merchant albums do.
Why the huge range of prices with albums? There are many different pro labs and pro album makers that photographers can partner with. Each company offers different items and albums. This is what makes the albums differ as well as how much time a photographer put into each album production. For example, a leather embossed cover with gilded pages is going to cost you more than a photo cover with plain pages. Check with your photographer on what albums they offer and their prices. Let them know your budget and they can work with you on an album that will fit your needs.
One of the biggest questions I get from clients who are interested in albums is "Can I choose the images for the album?" The answer for this question will differ depending on who your photographer is. Some photographer prefer to choose the photos and assemble the album as they see fit and what they think you will love. Other photographers will allow you choose your images. You will need to ask your photographer this questions. For the albums I offer, I let my clients choose the images they want, I make a draft of the album and email them a PDF, and once everything is approved the album is put into production.
Like all of my Monday Wedding Madness posts, the choice of purchasing an album is up to you!
*Note: The images of the album featured in this blog post are of the album that is offered with my Platinum Wedding Package as of 2015.
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Monday Wedding Madness is a blog series that occurs every Monday and answers the questions you have about wedding photography. Have a question you would like to have answered or something that you wish you would have known before your wedding or are you a wedding professional who would like to contribute? Send your questions to jasminenorrisphotography@hotmail.com.
