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.
Putting the album off "until later"
It's the mistake I see most often. After the wedding you tell yourselves "we'll do the album when we have time": months go by, the photos stay on the computer or the phone and the album never gets made. A pity, because photos are made to be printed and leafed through, even twenty years from now, perhaps with your children. My advice is simple: choose it straight away, together with the photography service. That way, when the photos are ready, I show you a preview of the album and only the details are left to decide together.
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.
Why I choose fine art printing
One of the 8 mistakes to avoid when choosing your wedding album concerns printing. Cheap typographic prints soon lose colour and definition. For my albums I choose fine art printing, which keeps colours true, blacks deep and details intact over time. Before printing I show you a preview of the album: it goes to print only after your approval, and I take care of the whole printing process myself.
Thinking only leather is "luxury"
One of the 8 mistakes to avoid when choosing your wedding album concerns the materials. For years leather was the obvious choice for an important album. That's no longer the case: new materials, such as quality vegan leather, fabrics, linen and velvet, are just as worthy, last over time and feel as refined to the touch as leather. Meanwhile leather has become very expensive, and it isn't a suitable choice for those who live vegan. That's why I let you touch the different materials: choose the one that reflects you, not the one that's "always been done".
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 format of poor quality and a medium format of excellent craftsmanship, the second is the better choice. An album that is a little smaller but properly bound and printed fine art lets you fully enjoy leafing through a quality album, an experience that involves senses other than sight. Prints with the right tones, in colour or black and white, give your eyes a visual experience they will love, keeping memories vivid in your mind. Who would want memories with faded colours?
Frequently asked questions
Is a leather or a fabric wedding album better?
I recommend a fine art album with a cover in velvet, linen, vegan leather or textured maple: beautiful to touch, durable and lighter. I reserve real leather for a few projects on request. What really matters is how the album is printed and bound.
A printed wedding album or just the digital files?
Files get lost between drives and phones; a printed album stays. That is why the album is the heart of my service: printed fine art and hand-bound, with a preview to approve before printing.
How do you recognise a quality wedding album?
From fine art printing, hand binding and the cover materials, such as velvet, linen, vegan leather or maple.
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.
How are your albums made?
They are handcrafted, hand-bound and printed in fine art. Before printing I show you a preview of the album, which is printed only once you approve it.
Can I see an album in person?
Yes: I meet clients by appointment at Hō-ō Lab in Grottaminarda, and I bring the albums for you to browse.
Getting married in Italy? I’m Raffaele Inglese, a wedding photographer based in Campania. See how I work on the Amalfi Coast and my other destinations in Italy.
