Wedding photos - album or no album?

spanglerwedding2012

Hi all - so you have been extreeemely helpful in providing advice on photographers. I am now narrowing down prices/packages to see which best fits our budget. Did you guys order the flushmount album as a part of your package?

The people I'm interested in provide you an online store, onine slideshow, blog post, and high res images on disc (w/rights to reproduce.) I've seen the albums, they're awesome, but an additional $1300 - I'm wondering if I should include it in a package or just create an album of my own. Thoughts?

paprika28

We're just going to create our own albums. We get full rights to the unedited and edited pictures, with the high res photo uploads. It made more sense to us, as I'd much rather just make mine...

dibsontop

I'm making my own layouts in Photoshop and then uploading them to MPIX to print.  It's the same way we made our parent albums.  I wanted to be able to design my own.

ButtonsPepper

I designed my own in picaboo.com. It was really easy and you could customize it. Flushmount albums there are around 500, which is way better then 1300... so I chose to do it myself. I still haven't ordered it yet though... which is a draw back. The money then was easy because so much was going towards wedding. 500 on an album now, seems like we could do other things with it..

spanglerwedding2012

I'm glad to hear so many of you made your own! I for some reason felt almost pressured to get the package that included the album...like I would regret it if I didn't. They're really nice, but I think I'd rather make a scrapbook or do something creative with them on my own. Oh good - my fiance will be THRILLED that I'm willing to cut that out.

mana8503

I decided to get it in the package.  Separate it was $1200 but if I went up a package ($700 difference) it was included.  Since my parents are paying for the photographer, FI and I decided to pay for the difference ourselves.  I do plan on making our parents an album, but I really liked the sturdiness of the flush mount albums for myself.

mana8503

PS I feel like we are going through the same things at the same time!

rachelk456

We are going to wait until our 1 year anniversary and then buy one from our photog. Ours is letting us have it at the same price as it would be if we bought it right after our wedding, so that might be something to ask about.

miguelhilary2010

I had an album included in my package.  We picked traditional photos and I'm happy with the end result.  It's a good keepsake. 

LaRositaMonita

Here are my thoughts on albums: making you rown vs. getting one from a photographer really depends on the kind of album you want.  There will definitely be some idfferences in terms of what you get from your photographer vs. what you can make yourself, but after you understand those differences, either option can be a good decision.

You can make some very nice albums yourself at the sites previously recommended, although you will get the best results if you know how to use photoshop.  If you want a coffee table book-style album, my personal recommend is MyPublisher.  We did our parent albums through them and loved the results.  We did want something with a little more "oomph" for ourselves, though.

We got a flushmount album through Doug with our package, though, that is very different from anyone we could have created on our own in terms of quality.  The pros will custom-design an album for you based on templates they have themselves created - right off the bat, this means that they wil be able to do things you can't do with a drag-and-drop software client or even with Photoshop unless you are at least as well-versed in design as they are.  Additionally, there are very few, if any, album companies out there regularly used by the pros that will let someoe who's not a professional photographer upload layouts or purchase their albums.  Picaboo (which works off a drag-and-drop type client, I think) and mpix are the closest things I've seen out there.  I wil attest to the fact that there is definitely a difference in quality in terms of what you will get from a company you as a non-pro can easily access and and the books from places like KISS wedding abums, zookbinders, etc. 

Does your photographer mark up the price they pay ridiculously and make lots of money off you?  Yes.  Part of this is because everyone else does, but a good part of this is because you are not just paying for the physical album, but for the custom design, the labor put in to making it, and for prints of the work.  (Think of it this way from an artist's perspective: when you buy a Picasso, are you paying just for the canvas it's printed on?  Likewise, when you buy albums or prints from your photographer, are you paying just for the materials? The answer to both is no, regardless of your opinion of your wedding phtographer as an artist or not.)  If you're not willing to pay that markup, and I don't blame you, then make sure you know you won't get quite the same heirloom quality from an album but that you can do OK making something yourself.  If you want the kind of albums you saw when you met with your photograher, though, you will have to pay. 

CaitC21

I got the DVD of all my pictures.
I am thinking that for a 1year anniversary or some sort of holiday we may go in on it with my dad and his parents.

I want one just the $$ isn't adding up to it right now.

jelybeancg

I was not going to get an album as part of the package or right away. I wanted to put 100% of my budget into what could not be done later (can't redo your wedding to get better pics). However, my photographer offered an album in the package that was in our budget and I did not have to sacrifice any of the talent, second shooter or rights to photos that I would have to be able to afford some of the other photographers we looked at. So I would say if you can afford it now without sacrificing anything that can not be done later do it. If not, do it later. Also, I guess I should say doing my own was never an option because I stink at layouts. My attempts previously have been a disaster.