Many wedding photographers fall into the trap of worrying too much about the event itself and not spending enough time on the album, which is your ‘business card’ for years to come.
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A Growing Industry
You need only visit a wedding exhibition to see that impressive wedding albums are big business. If you assume a potential client will judge your work on the big images you display on the walls of your stand, then the albums you have for people to look at demonstrate to potential clients how seriously you take their business. The book is indicative of the quality of your work, so it pays to put the high-end options out.
There is no doubt that the wedding album can be a significant revenue generator for photographers, and the margins can be good. The key is not to be daunted by it. You will have done a lot of the research upfront to understand what sort of shots your couple wants, you’ll know how formal or informal they are and you’ll have picked up lots more information (if you have thought about it) at the wedding itself, so you are in a great place to construct a beautiful unique album that reflects the personality of your clients. A clever photographer will have visited the site of the wedding event slightly before it happens to practise the shots they want, get the lighting right and the positioning. If for example they visited a Hotel Wedding Venue in Gloucester for the shots then looking through pictures on the site www.hatton-court.co.uk/gloucester-cotswolds-weddings would give them a heads up on the potential amount of areas they could visit.
ll in the Detail
Your clients will have ideas about what they what in terms of the colour and finish of the cover. In terms of content, this is where your detail shots come in. Your clients have spent time and money choosing every element of their big day, so while they won’t have the shot of the table plan for their wall, it’s important to include it in the album.
Couples will expect to see detail in the album – not least the venue. That is among the biggest expenses and the most significant choices, so, for example, a photographer should expect to include images of the beautiful building. A wedding photographer has plenty of scope for spectacular images.
The Knot gives some more suggestions for planning the perfect wedding album, and the Wedding Ideas Magazine gives some pointers for narrowing down photos to the ones you want in your book.
Don’t forget that even if they are buying ‘off-the-shelf’ covers, couples still want to feel they have a one-of-a-kind memento.
