8 mistakes to avoid when choosing your wedding album
Here are 8 mistakes to avoid when choosing your wedding album. Nowadays it's increasingly difficult to find a quality album, with prints worthy of a wedding. Many albums are passed off as leather albums with photographic prints, but it's easy to fall for it and end up with a product that doesn't last and is unpleasant to the touch and to the eye.
How can we avoid mediocre albums?
©My Happy Wedding, the products pictured are the actual products used for our photography services.
Cardboard or wood?
Think of a book, in this case an album. There are bindings and bindings: the fact is that buying an album with a cardboard core doesn't guarantee the right lifespan for your album, nor, above all, the sturdiness needed to fully enjoy your wedding photos. A wooden core in the cover gives the right solidity for an elegant, tasteful album. We'll talk later about finishes in the various materials.
Initials, engravings and cover prints
Choose them to suit your taste. Printing on leather looks great when done in the right colours, so that it's elegant and legible. Some manufacturers use adhesive letters. Well, avoid them: they won't last and will end up ruining your cover.
Photographic or offset printing?
One of the 8 mistakes to avoid when choosing your wedding album concerns printing. The world of printing is constantly evolving, and there are various types: offset, pigment and HD plotter printing, all capable of printing on a wide range of fine papers. From the very beginning, photographs were produced on light-sensitive materials without the use of inks. Today we have photographs that have lasted over 200 years thanks to the principle of light-sensitive materials. Why does this matter? Simple: the best way to ensure a photograph's durability is to use chemical photographic printing. It's the only kind that guarantees longevity even when exposed to sunlight. Silver halides are indestructible! Avoid offset or inkjet prints for your albums: these kinds of printing are meant for other uses. For photographs that hold your memories, photographic printing is the way to go.
Leather, fabric or synthetic materials
One of the 8 mistakes to avoid when choosing your wedding album concerns materials. An old saying tells us not to judge a book by its cover; well, in this case we'll be judging the very cover of our album. There's a huge choice of materials for albums, so you can really let your imagination run wild. Are they always quality materials? The answer is no! Beware of faux leather and other synthetic materials that try to imitate natural ones. At best they'll feel unpleasant to the touch and give off an unpleasant smell; at worst, after being opened many times, they'll start to crack, and we don't want that. Leather and hide are the most recommended for durability and feel. They give off no bad smells and bring just the right elegance. Fabrics aren't to be ruled out entirely, but bear in mind that they aren't waterproof.
FLAT scoring or not?
In the trade, printing applied to the page block is called digital printing, as it lets you lay out pages however you like with no limits on your design. In the centre, between the two sheets, a score is made, in other words a fold that allows the photographic paper to adapt as the pages close. Top-of-the-range models have flat scoring, which gives a perfectly flat spread (two facing pages) so your images can be viewed without any "steps". Avoid albums with uneven scoring or with differences in level between the pages. Think of every spread as a poster to be admired.
The details that make the difference
When a product is handmade, you can tell from the details and from how the various pieces making up the cover are assembled. Even the least attentive eye senses the elegance of a hand-bound album crafted down to the smallest detail. Industrial, mass-produced products often have small flaws that, taken together, give the impression of an unappealing product that doesn't do justice to our prints. To quote Benoît Mandelbrot, the object would give us back a chaotic, uneven fractal.
Parents' albums
Properly printed wedding photography includes parents' copies made with the same materials as the main album, in a smaller size of course. Having a set of albums in materials of differing quality is not the best you can ask of a wedding photography service. Picture your white car with two yellow doors.
Large and cheap, or small and fairly priced?
Between a large, poor-quality format and a medium format of excellent craftsmanship, the second is the better choice. A slightly smaller album, but properly bound and printed on silver halide photographic paper, lets you fully enjoy the experience of leafing through a quality album that engages senses beyond sight alone. Prints with the right tones, whether colour or black and white, mean a visual experience our eyes will love, keeping memories vivid in our minds. Who would want memories in faded colours?
Frequently asked questions
Meglio un album di matrimonio in pelle o in tessuto?
Dipende dal gusto: la pelle è classica e invecchia bene, il tessuto (lino o seta) è più morbido e moderno. Conta che il materiale sia vero e la rilegatura fatta a mano.
A printed wedding album or just the digital files?
Files get lost across hard drives and phones; a printed album stays. Ideally you'll have both: the files to share, the album to keep.
How do you recognise a quality wedding album?
By genuine photographic printing (not litho printing), hand binding and the cover materials, such as leather or fabric.
How many photos should go in the wedding album?
Better a selection that tells the story of the day with a rhythm than every single photo: a few strong images are worth more than many similar ones.
