Today’s post is all about how to pick photos for your wedding album. After delivering wedding galleries to my couples, I give them a few simple options regarding their wedding albums. They can pick their favorite 100ish images, or they can have me pick images that I feel best tell their story and they can swap in or out any photos before sending the design to the printer. For couples that want to pick their own images, I have a few tips for you!
First off, I strongly advise everyone to ALWAYS order a wedding album! You aren’t going to have your wedding photos on your walls forever, and once you eventually take them down, you’ll have nothing left but the USB drive and hopefully YOUR WEDDING ALBUM! Let’s face it, you aren’t going to bust out your memory drive and go through all 500+ images when friends and family come over. But you probably would hand them a heirloom wedding album that tells the story of your wedding day with all your favorite images :)
When picking images, think about the story!
I know it’s tempting to just pick 100 portraits of you both, your family, and your wedding party. But portraits don’t really tell the story or the emotion of the day. Start by picking a handful of images from each section of the day (getting ready details, portraits, ceremony details, cocktail hour food/drinks/candids, reception details, dancing, etc).
After you have about 40ish photos from all the sections of the day, fill in the rest with your FAVORITE parts of the day! For most, this is couples portraits, family photos, and reception candids.
By thinking about telling a story when picking your album images, it will make it that much more fun to RELIVE THE ENTIRE DAY when looking back through your wedding album. It will also make it more fun to share your wedding memories with friends and family that visit you and maybe weren’t able to come to your wedding. They can look through your album and get a good sense of the day as a whole and all the parts that make it unique and special to you :)
I’ve included an example below of a design layout from a recent wedding album I sent to the printers. This bride picked all her own images and did a fantastic job of using photos from all sections of the day to tell the story of her wedding! Hope this helps as you pick photos for your wedding album!
What should you consider before booking your wedding photographer? Click here to read more!
Are you a photographer and want to learn how I design wedding albums? Find out HERE!
