Goal # 11 on our 101 in 1001 list has been a long time coming.  We’ve been offering the same gorgeous wedding and guest book albums since about a year into shooting weddings.  We’ve had sample albums of weddings for a really long time, but we’ve just never quite gotten around to designing and ordering a guest book album sample. Until now.

Feast your eyes on the album goodness.   This is one of our wedding albums.  Supple Italian leather cover.  2mm thick lay-flat pages printed on Fuji Crystal Archival paper.  And it smells like a new pair of shoes straight out of the box ;-)  If an album were a type of food, we’re talking about a decadent, super rich, chocolate desert.  Yum-my.

Next up, the chic little brother of the wedding album – the engagement session Guest Book.  Don’t be turned off by it’s smaller stature, this little baby can still hold it’s own.  This thinner, linen covered version of the wedding album still has the same gorgeous ability to showcase your most precious memories.  Since there are a lot more images from a wedding than an engagement session, it’s usually about half the number of pages.  These albums are created with a clean, spacious look, leaving lots of white space for guests to write messages to the happy couple.  Now, there’s a guest book that won’t get thrown in a box as soon as you get back from your honeymoon!  We offer this same style of album for portrait sessions too, although the designs are usually a bit more traditional.

So that about does it!  And if you’ve every wondered about the value of buying a wedding album we invite you check out this great post from our blog archives: FAQ: Do I Need a Wedding Album?  Have a great week everybody!

Why should we book an engagement session?

Shooting engagement sessions is one of our favorite things about working with wedding clients.  The engagement session gives us a chance to get to know you as a couple away from the business of your wedding day.  We often tell our clients that shooting an engagement session with us is kind of like a double date :-)  It’s a time when we can talk to you one on one (well, it’s actually more like two on two) and hear all about how you met, what you love about each other and all the other things that make up your love story.  In addition to getting to know you personally, it also gives us a chance to find out what you’re like in front of the camera so we can make the very most of our portrait session with you on your actual wedding day.  When we show up on your big day, it will feel like we’re old friends – not a couple of crazy paparazzi chasing you around with cameras all day – and we’ll already know how to make your photo experience the very best that it can be.  Not to mention the fact that you’ll have a lot of fun snuggling with your honey and you’ll get a ton of beautiful photos out of it!

How do we choose a location?

The location is entirely up to you!  The most important thing to keep in mind is that we want YOU to be a big part of the process!  We want you and your spouse-to-be to have a great experience and end up with photos that reflect who you are and tell your story.  When we start to brainstorm ideas for a location we will ask you things like, “what do you do together for fun?”, “are there any places that are significant to your relationship?”, “what type of settings have you seen in other photos that appealed to you?”, “what do you consider your personal style, individually and as a couple?”  We can make lots of suggestions based on areas where we like to shoot, but our ultimate goal is to come up with a place that fits YOU!

How long does it take?

We tell our clients to allow two to three hours for an engagement session.  We typically shoot at more than one location and/or spend time walking around together to get a variety of shots with different back grounds.  Overall, we like to be able to take our time and have fun together - you’ll have plenty of time to relax in front of the camera and we’ll have plenty of time to get to know you.

What should we wear?

Wear something that reflects YOUR personality and style!  Since couples have the option to change clothes at some point during the session, many couples choose to do one more formal outfit (such as a dress or skirt for gals and a button down shirt for the guys) and one more casual outfit (like jeans and a more casual top).  We don’t encourage wearing matching clothing unless it has a particular significance for you – or unless you really do wear matching clothes in your every day lives :-), and we do recomend that you avoid tops that have a really strong pattern that would draw a lot of attention aware from your face.  Your clothing choice is entirely up to you, but we recommend that no matter what you choose it should to be something you’d be ok sitting on the ground in for a short period of time.

Can we include our pet?

Yes!  We are open to including pets during an engagement session, but as they are a bit unpredictable we ask that a family member or friend come along to help look after them.  We suggest that we include the pet during the first half an hour of the session and then the family member or friend can take them back home so we can spend the rest of the time focused on you without any distractions.

When will I get to see my photos?

Three to five days after your engagement session, we’ll post a preview of your photos along with a slideshow set to music on the blog.  We encourage you to forward the link to family and friends and share your images with others.  There’s even a comment section under each post where people can leave you messages.  The rest of the photos will be edited within three to four weeks and put into an online gallery where you can purchase prints and other items.  Within a week of your gallery launch, you’ll recieve a customized disk of low resolution images in the mail which you can use as you wish.  Full resolution images can be purchased separately or by individual image from the proof gallery website.

What is a Guest Book Album?

A great way to showcase your engagement images is with a guest book album.  These are modern, coffee table style albums designed with blank space left for your wedding guests to leave you special messages on your big day.  These albums are used in place of a tradition guestbook where guests only have room to sign their names.  After your wedding, the album will serve as a wonderful momento of your engagement session and contain all the love and well wishes from your family and friends.  You won’t want to just throw this guest book in a box with your other wedding keepsakes, it will remain out to look at and share for years to come!

We live in the age of Facebook, blogging and zillions of other online photo sharing sites that allow our clients to share their photos in all kinds of ways.  This is one of the reasons we choose to include a disk of images with all of our wedding packages.  Sharing photos in digital format is something that’s important to everyone these days.  So you may be asking yourself, if I have a disk of photos, why do we need a wedding album? We’ve put together some thoughts that may give you some answers to this very common question:

1.) A wedding album tells your story.

After your wedding day, how often do you think you’ll sit down at your computer and look through a disk of 600-800 images?  Probably not too many times.  That many images can be a little overwhelming.  While it’s so important to capture all of the moments that take place on one of the most important days of your lives, looking through all of them can be a little tedious.  Individual images may have the ability to capture a moment, but a wedding album tells your story by focusing in on the highlights of the day.  A disk of photos lacks the narrative effect of a custom designed album.  The whole reason you have a photographer document your wedding is to share it with others.  Your album is the perfect way to do that.

2.) It’s a work of art.

Photos are meant to be printed!  When weddings were shot using film, can you imagine what a client would have thought if their wedding photographer just handed them a roll of negatives?  That’s basically what a disk of images represents – undeveloped negatives in digital form.  Your wedding photos are intended to create beautiful printed works of art that will serve as a lasting symbol of your love.  A professionally designed, high quality album is the perfect work of art to preserve your most cherished memories.

3.) It’s your first family heirloom.

You will be so excited the day your wedding album arrives.  You’ll look at it over and over again, and it will probably feel like one of the most valuable things you’ve ever owned.  But the true value of your album will come into play many years down the road.  Imagine showing it to your kids!  Imagine being able to show them how amazing you both looked and tell them all about how the story of their family first began.  That’s when it’s really worth the investment.  Your album truly is your very first family heirloom, meant to be shared and past along for generations.

4.) It’s made to stand the test of time.

With constant changes in technology, we don’t even know if the average computer will read your DVD of images 50 years later.  Your wedding album is made with archival materials intended to last a lifetime.  These images will not fade – and neither will the beautiful memories of your wedding day.

5.) You’ll wish you had.

Every time a new album arrives in the mail, we get SO excited to share it with the couple.  Seriously, these albums are AMAZING!  We never invested in an album from our big day, and it’s always been something we wish we had.

We custom design every wedding album to tell the unique story of each couple’s wedding.  We also give our clients the option to order a wedding album up to a year after their wedding day.  That way if things are a little tight right after the big day, they can wait a few months before making another big purchase.  We even offer a special 30% discount if parents or other family members want to purchase a duplicate copy of the couple’s wedding album.  If you have any questions about albums, feel free to check out the pricing section on our main website or send us an email at studio@simplyknotphotography.com.

Making our customers happy is really important to us.  Whether it’s out shooting together, working with us on an album design or even ordering prints of your wedding photos, we want you to walk away feeling like you had a great experience!  In an effort to make the proof gallery side of our service even better, we’ve decided to make the switch to a new proofing company called Pictage. Pictage is an awesome company that offers tons of great products and has the very best customer proofing interface on the market today.  Here are some of the ways that Pictage will make viewing and ordering your photos easier and better!

- You can create your own gallery of favorites to share with family and friends.

- Your wedding day will be categorized into different sections (ex: getting ready, ceremony, formal portraits, etc.) to make it fast and easy to get to the exact photo you want.

- You’ll have tons of great options to choose from every time you order a print.  The Pictage interface allows you to crop images to your liking, convert an image to black and white and even apply cool borders, all the while being able to view a preview of exactly what your print will look like.

- You’ll be offered great new products like canvas prints and photo cards that can be ordered directly from your gallery.

We’re very excited to make this change, but we also want to make the transition as easy as possible for our clients.  If you’re an existing client whose wedding date or portrait session has already been published in an online gallery, your gallery will remain as is until the expiration date 90 days after it was posted.  If you’re event or session has not yet been published to an online gallery, you’ll receive an email from us as soon as your photos are available using the new Pictage interface.

If you have any questions about our proof galleries or any of our other services please feel free to send us an email at Studio@simplyknotphotography.com.  Have a great week!