average # of photos for wedding album?

tmcd13

Hi,

I'm finally starting to buckle down and pick photos for my album.  I'm curious though- for those of you who are ordering your album from your photographer, how many photos do you get in your album? 

kristen8040

I think we pick 80.

Laurms15

100

Denise91980

85

Cuppycake10

100

uppereastgirl

Our photographer said that the average 35-page album would have 100 photos, but we weren't tied to any particular number -- if we wanted 35 pages that were all two-page spreads of one photo, we would have 17 photos in the album.  If we wanted to go up to 50 pages and put 6 photos on each page, that was fine too.  It all depends on the layout.

GolfChick78

Same as Uppereastgirl; there really are no limitations. 

We don't purchase the album until after our wedding so we're not tied into a specific page count.  Our photographer does a predesign which he says is typically 40-50 pages, but we can have anything from 24-90 at our choosing.  We can also do anytthing we want from a design perspective and have as many or as few images per page as we want.  And to some extent, the number of pictures per page is driven by size; I might do max only 4 per page with a 10x10 album but maybe 6 per page with a 12x12.  

Based on what we've budgeted for and the designs we saw, we'll probably go with something like a 40 page 12x12 and a total of about 100 images.

sgdc2011

We were told to pick an average of about 3 pictures per spread, for flexibility.  I think no more than 120 pictures or it would look to crowed.

altimat873

We are getting 35 pages and he told us to pick anywhere from 80-100 pix

tmcd13

Ok thanks.  My photographer said no more than 74 so I'm a little annoyed. 

cindy91788

It depends on the layouts you use and what album you get, etc.. I thought my photographer said 60 but I could be wrong.

GolfChick78

I guess I'm surprised to hear how open-ended this is for so many. 

The way I understand it, our photographer is going to predesign an album for us.  Then we can add, subtract, make edits, etc., until we're happy with the final album.  This draft is just a starting place to give us some idea of what's possible and how it might all lay out. 

Are you all saying that you don't get a predesign; that it's up to you to come back to your photographer with X number of images and then they begin working with that?

tmcd13

Yeah, basically.  He said we pick no more than 74 images and then he sends those images to the company and they complete a design.  The next step would be to approve every layout so I do have the flexibility to change the design.  I'm just annoyed because its on hte lower end of what everyone is saying.  Still, I should've looked into this in the beginning so it is partly my fault.  But when it comes to adding extra pictures, it seems that its going to cost me a lot

uppereastgirl

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_new-jersey_average-of-photos-wedding-album?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:90Discussion:0d108f2e-a600-4b1b-ba27-90da716b695fPost:68171779-00a6-4f39-83ef-1f7ac4271fd4">Re: average # of photos for wedding album?</a>:
[QUOTE]I guess I'm surprised to hear how open-ended this is for so many.  The way I understand it, our photographer is going to predesign an album for us.  Then we can add, subtract, make edits, etc., until we're happy with the final album.  This draft is just a starting place to give us some idea of what's possible and how it might all lay out.  Are you all saying that you don't get a predesign; that it's up to you to come back to your photographer with X number of images and then they begin working with that?
Posted by GolfChick78[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure what you mean by a pre-design.  This is how our process works:

We came up with a list of 100 photos that we maybe wanted in the album.  The photographer came up with a list of 100 photos (some of which of course were the same as ours).  When the two lists were compiled, we went into the photographer's studio to look at the photos on their huge LCDs and discussed them with the album designer.  We took some out, we added some in.  The designer then took what we had discussed and put together a draft -- it didn't include all of the photos from our list, and she added in even more, depending on what looked good on each page.  She wasn't using a set template or a set number of pages-- she worked with what looked good with our photos.  We gave her all of our comments, and she put together a second draft.  She'll keep doing this until we're satisfied (we got overwhelmed and put the project aside, which is why we still don't have an album -- but working on it again is one of my new year's resolutions!).  I get the impression from what I've heard from others here though that our album process is much more bespoke than what you get with most photographers.  (On the other hand, the album was not included in our package, so it isn't like they're trying to keep it at a certain cost or amount of labor -- and the albums our photographer offers are very, very pricey.)

GolfChick78

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_new-jersey_average-of-photos-wedding-album?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:90Discussion:0d108f2e-a600-4b1b-ba27-90da716b695fPost:8dfa120a-b527-4c95-bd14-ad591a776721">Re: average # of photos for wedding album?</a>:
[QUOTE] we got overwhelmed and put the project aside, which is why we still don't have an album -- but working on it again is one of my new year's resolutions
Posted by uppereastgirl[/QUOTE]

I guess I had know idea how differently this was done from one photographer to the next. 

Our photographer showed us the designs he did for a few recent couples.  Each was different so I don't think he's just working from a standard template.  He says we can expect ~50 pages and 120ish photos that he will have selected, but this is only a starting place.  We're free to do whatever we want with respect to adding pages to include more photos, adding or subracting photos from individual pages, relacing a photo with one we like better, or even changing the design itself, all without limitations or cost (at least that's our understanding) until we're happy with the design.  The designs and revisions all get posted to a private on-line gallery so, arguably, we don't even have to come in to meet; we could do all of this remotely.  Sounds kinda nice and not too difficult.

If we were working from scratch, I'd have trouble visualizing what we're making and I can imagine myself either getting stuck, procrastinating, etc.  I just know that's the way I am.

tmcd13

Thanks for all the information.  I think the design plays an important part of it.  I ended up contacting my photographer about this and he said I could add more photos without charge, although there may end up being more photos on the page.  It is so time consuming and I now understand, like Uppereast discussed, why procasination has suddenly hit me! 

Reilly626

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