Are you buying the photographer's wedding album?

Mine is coming with our package, but I would say if they are giving you the digital files just do it on your own. Look out for deals from places like shutterfly or a site like it.

No freaking way. Couldn't pay me to do it.

But I'm an engineer. I'm all numbers and calculators. The creativity gene doesn't exist in my body to figure this out.

Also, I get really really really really overwhelmed with too many choices. I did a "mini-shoot" a year ago with my photographer and had to pick through 20 images! It was too hard. I don't want to have to pick through a couple hundred.

My photographer has also known me since I was 12. So the background helps her prepare a better album then I could.

My photgraphy package came with one. i really wanted a nice flush mount album, and hers are BEAUTIFUL quality. i could DIY a flush mount on a site like picaboo.com but i wouldnt be saving that much money and i KNOW i would procrastinate on doing it.

a lot of my friends who did not purchase the album from their photographer regret it. they decided they would just DIY once they got all their wedding photos. theyve been married 2-3 years now and still havent done it! they just never got around to doing it after the honeymoon, being newly weds, some started families.

When my lovely fiance and I get married next year I am going to get an album from www.blightybooks.co.uk . My friend had her wedding photos turned in to the most beautiful flush mount album earlier this year. All she had to do was send in the images on CD and they did everything for her. They are based in the UK but even with delivery, it still worked out cheaper than getting one from her photographer.

I didnt want to buy the album but we decided to becuase just to get the copyright of all the images is 750$!!! However if we purchase an album for $1000 we get the copyright images inclded. So we said why not spend an extra 250$ on a nice album!

FH fell in love with the photobooks our photographer had so we did order one...

Its really been the only thing he wanted so far (besides colors)

(Didn't read all previous posts) BUT... if you are going to have the images unrestricted, you can definitely do it yourself. I used "no album" as a negotiating piece for booking my photographer. It saved us some money. I used Photobook America for our e-pics because they offered a Groupon $35 for $115. Mixbook.com is also a great site. I'm a designer so it was an easy decision for me. But, another argument for doing it yourself is that you can also make sure that your favorite photos make it in, and your least favorite don't.

Good luck!

I'm not sure yet what we're going to do. Our package has a very simple 8 hours coverage and high resolution DVD with all edited images, access to an online gallery for prints, etc.

I think we may just select some prints and have them around the house in frames.

Just one thing to say here...don't confuse 'album' with 'book'. A wedding album has rigid pages, the images are created with actual photographic paper (whether it's a flushmount album or a more traditional album), and it's bound to last a lifetime. It's archival quality.

What you get from Shutterfly, etc. are 'press books' - meaning they are printed on press papers, not photographic papers, and the pages are thin and flexible, like a magazine or somewhat thicker. There is a huge difference in the appearance of images on press paper vs. photographic paper.

Other things you need to bear in mind when wondering why our albums are so expensive: first, the album vendors charge us a lot of money to begin with; second, your photographer is going to have to spend time designing your album (our outsourcing it to a design company), and third: most photographers will spend more time doing very thorough retouches on images going in albums. All of this takes time.

To conclude...we're not trying to soak you for the cost of an album, but we do have to take into consideration the amount of time we spend creating them and the cost of getting albums from album vendors. Some are less expensive than others, so maybe look for a photographer that carries albums which are less expensive. Yes, we also have to make a profit...after all, we like to eat and clothe our kids too.

Not saying that you should definitely choose an album, but at least know what you're getting and what the differences are.

I agree with Lisa. The album is a part of our package and honestly, it's light years away from what you get from shutterfly. We only got one album for ourselves, because of the cost, and some family members will get the shutterfly version. In our case the difference in price wasn't that big so it made sense.

I just wanted to mention that there is a middle ground between doing it yourself on Shutterfly and buying your photographer’s expensive album package.

Using a graphic designer to create your layouts and order your album can save you a lot of money and you end up with the same professional product you would have from your photographer.

Graphic designers charge a nominal amount per page for their custom design, and they have access to the same professional print-to-bind sources, without the markup. The quality of the book from these professional sources is so much better than Shutterfly, or any such commercial site. Professional grade photobooks are much better constructed, they have thick pages that lay flat and the image is noticeably more vivid and crisp. And they are not that much more expensive than Shutterfly. I would be happy to answer any questions about how graphic designers work and the choice of photobooks and flush mount albums available. Susan Gallagher

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