You got your wedding photos back!!! Now, what?!?
Getting that email with all your wedding photos is SOOOO exciting; getting to re-live all the moments from getting ready to see your partner for the first time, it’s AMAZING that you have invested in these keepsakes. But what do you do now? what’s the next step? How do you save 800 photos?! I got you!! From how to save your wedding photos, to how to even begin to select the images for albums or print!
DO NOT save them to your phone as a long-term plan or even for future printing needs. Phones compress image quality, so you will never have the full resolution if you decide to print some massive portraits at a later date.
Save those photos on TWO hard drives. Hard drives fail, even my own, so a backup is necessary and expected! your photos shouldn’t take up more than 120 GB so I think that’s a safe place to start for storage needs, my own personal hard drives are about 5 TB. Technology is constantly changing and saving your images in a file folder on your laptop is never a good plan.
Start “ hearting” or liking what photos you want to include in an album and which ones you want to print! I suggest really being selective, but choosing at least one photo from each part of the day so you can look back on a book and remember ALL the parts not just the epic scenery. The epic scenery can be for your walls or even prints to store away for later. I usually recommend selecting about 30 -50 images to start with, you never want your pages to be jam-packed so this will really help you narrow down your selection.
Decide if you want to design your own album or have your photographer help you! I personally take a retainer of 300 to design your album that can be applied to any album at purchase. The benefit of designing your own album is it allows you ultimate control but it can also take up a lot of valuable time. The benefit of having your photographer design your album is that they design them ALOT so they usually know what works and what doesn’t, plus you get to sit back and relax while they do all the hard work.
Remember your photographer will not have your album stored forever online so it’s important to have those moments saved in a place you will be able to find and access! Label that external hard drive!!
