It’s no secret that albums are a super important part of a wedding collection to me. Our base fee covers our time and talent, plus some other goodies, and then we allow our clients to choose their album based on size preference and budget. Over the years, digital images have become a huge request of clients, and rightfully so. But I’m finding that the more we gravitate towards the digital world, the more we miss out on the beauty and necessity of tangible products. Once or twice a year a take a tip to visit my Grandma in Texas, and every single time I’m there I go into the back bedroom, sit down in front of the nightstand, and pull out each album one at at a time. I’ve seen these pictures hundreds of time,s but there is just something so sweet and special about thumbing through them. She has one for each of her 6 Grandkids, starting from when we were newborns. But here’s the thing. The pictures in my album stop when I was about 12 or 13. Because it was at that point that the digital age began taking over, and most people stopped printing their images. I now have very few images of some of the most awkward best years of my life. It is for this reason that I really encourage clients to get an album. If budget is tight and they can’t add it up front, then it’s a great thing to do for a first anniversary.

Due to the fact that albums are so important to me for clients to have, I try to make the process of getting their album as simple as possible. I use KISS designer, which has worked fantastically well. It is $99/year an I can have up to 15 active albums at any time, plus the ability to archive every album design I’ve made. I can literally create a mock design of an album in 15 minutes for 25 spread and 50 pages. Once I’ve done that, I can then send the client their mock album and there is space on each spread for leaving comments if they want changes made.

When designing album spreads, I try to keep the photos on each page to a minimum, so as to allow them to stand out. It’s also important to me to do my best to make sure that the images aren’t bleeding over the middle crease of the album, at least as often as possible.

Here are some examples: