Should we buy a Wedding album?
Yes, we think you should. There, you’ve just heard our wedding album sales pitch. The obvious follow-up question is why? Well, the simple truth is we don’t have one and we regret it.
We did our wedding on a micro budget. Favours were called in and we spent hours and hours crafting to make our little Cornish wedding budget friendly. We spent a quarter of our tiny budget on our photographer and even with that, we could only afford a digital only package. There was no chance of being able to afford a wedding album. We spent the money an album would have cost on a DJ. Don’t ask how we wish we’d spent it, let’s just say the DJ was “interesting”.
We got our photos burnt onto a DVD (how retro) and for a long time, that is where they stayed. We weren’t wedding photographers back then, so we decided to do a DIY wedding album, using a self publishing book company. It is not great! The colours are off and the quality is awful. One day we will create a proper wedding album to replace it, but until then, we will continue to wish we had found the money and ordered a proper wedding album from our wedding photographer.
As for the DVD of images. We have no idea where it is. Luckily Carl has the photos backed up on our systems, so we know exactly where the photos are. but I wonder how many couples actually know where their DVD/USB drive is? A 12 inch custom wedding album, is a little less easy to misplace.
We still love looking through our crappy self-made photo book. Our son pulls it out on a regular basis and tells us how much younger we looked (he’s still learning subtlety). There is nothing like looking through your parents wedding albums and he does it now in exactly the same way we did with our parents wedding albums (and I’m sure our parents had the same feelings we do about it).
A wedding album becomes more than a book, it becomes your story. It is the conversation starter, the thing you pull out to show family and friends. The first thing you reach for on your anniversary to remember how much fun your special day was. The thing that you will show your children and in the future your grandchildren. Can you ever see yourself pulling out a 30 year old iPad or USB stick (if you can find it) to look over with your family?
That’s the thing with technology. It is constantly evolving and things we use daily now will be obsolete in years to come. Our wedding images came on a DVD. However, we don’t own a computer with a DVD drive in it any more. How much do you think computers will change in 25 years? What we know as normal now will be obsolete, unable to be used or destroyed by time. A wedding album though? It will never change. If you look after it, it will still be as good as day you opened it for the first time.
The last thing is photos look better in print. Photos look good on some screens, but there is no substitute for a beautiful album of images. Books are comforting, books have been around for hundreds of years and in the same way that a kindle version of a book just isn’t the same, neither is an image on a screen.
Lastly, think about this. What happens if a giant magnetic meteor passed the earth, every computer would be wiped out and all that would remain would be books. Just imagine that as well as living in a post apocalyptic world, you had lost the digital files of your wedding photos. Bet you didn’t think about that, did you!
In all seriousness though, we know a wedding album is an investment. However, it is the thing you will be bringing out for years to come. It becomes an important heirloom for you as a couple and will be the way you tell the story of your wedding day for generations to come.