This is why. Here is my parent’s wedding album.
It is over 60 years old, stained and worn but it squeezes my heart every time I pick it up. Looking at their young faces, full of joy and excited to be starting a new life together, surrounded by family and friends equally happy for them (today we'd call that their entourage but the thoughts of my Mother using that word makes me LOL!). Obviously, I didn’t know my parents then so seeing them this way on possibly the happiest day of their lives, well, I’m bewitched.
You’re probably saying, “okay Karen, we are happy you love to look at your parents wedding album but why should I buy a wedding album? After all, my collection includes the digital files.” While there are many benefits to owning the digital copies of your images, it can never replace a traditional wedding album. As technology changes, you may be faced with having to transfer your digital files to a different medium to ensure you always have access to your images. If digital options were available for my parents, what would I be looking at today? Would I be scouring yard sales trying to find the last existing slide projector to view their photos? Instead, I hold their album, an heirloom, with a life expectancy beyond my own.
In reality, there are so few tangible takeaways from your wedding and after all, you may have spent a decent portion of your wedding budget on me so that you can have the best wedding images on your day. Having your favorite wedding moments captured and archived as a family heirloom is truly worth it. I know, weddings are expensive. I get it. The dress, the venue, caterer, florals, photographer, entertainment…it all adds up. But listen, you have your dream wedding. Then you receive a digital gallery and go through all those wonderful photos we discussed during our wedding consult meeting. You reminisce, remember the emotions, the fun and the excitement. Then you close your laptop and ……then what? Those digital files, your history, remains right there. Condemned to an eternity of “oh, we’ll make prints when we get settled”. Then life happens and it goes to a back burner.
Images should be in physical form. Get a wedding album. It’s an investment in your life story. There is something wonderfully tactile about holding a wedding album. The feel of the pages as you experience the story created by a beautiful design from the beginning of the day to your grand exit. No internet required. Just a comfy chair and your fabulous album. Always there, ready to be picked up in that moment, and enjoyed. No need to fire up the iPad, get distracted checking emails or Facebook and eventually, maybe, remember you were going to look at your wedding photos.
Then you ask, how is that any different than the book you made online with all your vacation photos? You’re pretty proud of yourself for that aren’t you and everyone seems to love it, right? It’s totally different—like Mars and Venus different. Those books are printed on a printing press. They are not real photos. Commercially bound with glue and never meant to stand the test of time. Colors will fade, pages get worn and it stops representing how wonderful your vacation was. Today’s quality albums are true photographs, just like the ones in our parent’s album. Carefully printed by a professional photo color lab on archival photo paper, they are mounted on sturdy pages, with seamless panoramic spreads, and stitch bound by true craftsmen using high end leathers, linens, and suedes. Wooden boxes, glass or metal covers, foil stamping, even videos inserted into the lids—the options for customizing are practically endless! Most wedding albums will showcase 50-100 images depending on size and layout. And now, here’s my shameless pitch: You also get the benefit of my 25 years as an award winning book designer. No predesigned templates at Karen Doody Photography! We will work together closely to choose your favorite images and tell your story so when you share it with friends and family I know you will be proud of the heirloom we’ve created for you to enjoy for a lifetime.
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