That's it, here you are! The big day is over and you now get to sit back and relax happily married. But wait! There's one more thing, your wedding album! Choosing the right photos for your wedding album can be quite the challenge. But it doesn't have to be, that's why here at Limelight we created 5 simple steps for choosing the images for your wedding album. We strongly encourage our brides and grooms to take a look at our simple and easy steps below to really understand how to choose their photos for their albums in order to best re-create the story of your wedding day.
Check out our 5 easy steps below to help choose the best images for your album.
Step 1: Enjoy Choosing!
Your Wedding Album is something that is going to be with you for the rest of your life. It will remind you of all the special memories and moments with your loved ones, so that is why it is so important to take your time when choosing the photos to go in it. We believe that choosing the pictures should be something you enjoy, because it is another stage in your wedding journey. If you can sit down with your spouse and have dinner or even a glass of wine or two and enjoy the experience rather than getting stressed. This will also make your album more meaningful.
Step 2: Tell your Story.
A wedding album should tell the story of the day from beginning to end in chronological order. So we encourage when selecting your photos for your album to keep that consistency. When you open your album we want you to re-live that day all over again, so choosing unique moments that really stick out to you will help tell that story. When we design albums, we start and end with a singular photo of the bride and groom. And moving on to the first couple pages we begin with the introduction of the bride and grooms day separately. As the bride and groom get ready, to the first look, to the reception and then on to family photos etc. Choosing your images like this will really help tell your story and allow you to look back at your wedding day from beginning to end.
Step 3: Break the Day into Sections.
Your album will flow better if you have a nice balance of pictures from across the different parts of your day. So rather than picking loads from the first part of the day and not much from later on or vise versa try to ensure a consistent spread of your favorites across the board. Then divide your shots up into different sections and choose the very best from each one, Try to keep the numbers roughly the same for each section. Here is a list for you to get a general idea of what we need from you for your album.
- Venue shots to set the scene for the story
- Getting ready shots for the bride, plus details (dress, shoes, flowers etc)
- Getting ready shots for the groom, plus a couple of details (if applicable)
- Wide shot of your ceremony room, plus one or two details
- Shots of the groom before the ceremony
- First looks shots (if applicable)
- Shots of the bride arriving and or walking up the aisle to the groom
- Key shots of the marriage ceremony
- Leaving the ceremony (walking back down the aisle)
- Confetti shots (if applicable)
- Reception mingling shots
- Group shots (Family, bridal party, other close family or friends) - please include
- Bride & groom couple shots
- Shot of your dining room, plus one or two detail shots
- Shots of the bridal party entering the reception
- Shots of the speeches
- Shots of the cake and of the cake cutting
- Shots of the first dance
- Shots of the family dances
- Shots of the evening fun, dancing etc
- Closing shot - may include sunset or scenic shot (if applicable)
***Also note that when choosing your images, it's always easier to select ‘in’ rather than to eliminate ‘out’. You’ll end up with fewer images and it will help select your favorites more that way***
Step 4: Include your must haves, not your should haves.
This is YOUR wedding album and it should hold your favorite images from your day. Choose your images from your heart and not so much your head, include the images that you love. Don't include an image just because you like it, choose the image because you love it! You have access to your online gallery and probably have downloaded the whole gallery by now and you can always look at them there, or even print them yourself and give them to your friends and family. But your album is for the favorites that tell your story, that will preserve your memories.
Step 5: Choose a Variety.
This is a very important step in choosing your images for the album. An album with a good amount of variety in the images chosen will be more interesting to look at and will show you more of the aspects and perspectives of your wedding day. If you have selected several of the same images we do ask you to select your favorite out of the bunch. Choosing a variety of images allows there to be less repetition in the design of the album. It will also allow the design of your album to be more unique and creative.
Being faced with 500+ photos can still be quite difficult for some. If you would prefer for us to select all of the images for your album, please let us know and we would be very happy to do this. It is easier for us to choose album images as wedding professionals. If you choose to do this you will be sent upon completion of the album a proof and you can tell us from there on of any revisions you would like before the album is printed. This is an option we offer all of our brides and grooms but it is not required.
COMPLETE WEDDING ALBUM EXAMPLES
We hope this information helps, if you have any questions feel free to give us a call at (517) 709-7409 or email us at Limelightphotodept@gmail.com
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