My one regret

Since I am always surrounded by weddings Julie and I often find ourselves reflecting back on our wedding day. We loved every aspect of it; delicious cake, fantastic organizers, beautiful venue, and of course jaw-dropping photos. It was absolutely perfect, but we have one regret … we didn’t get a photo album.

Before you go rolling your eyes, I am in no way trying to “sell” you an album so I can make more money and feed baby Emma, haha. If you have ever met me, you would know that I never push packages and I definitely never pressure you into booking with me. I believe there is a vendor that fits right with every couple and you should go out to find that vendor, even if it isn’t me. However, we learn from every decision in life (often a little too late), and I love to share my experiences with everyone.

Like many couples getting married I was still a student, so budgeting for a wedding was difficult … as it always is. It was easy to make a decision to cut back on extras, like albums, in order to save money. I always had the mindset that I’ll have the digital files and that is all I need.

Not too long after our wedding we received our digital photos on a disc and excitedly went through them all, re-living each moment. They were fantastic! We then made backups and put the disc in a safe place. This was almost 3 years ago and the amount of times we went back to that disc to view the photos again since was … well … never … not once.

Back in the day music was listened to on small circular shinny discs, televisions where fat and heavy, phones needed buttons, and photos were taken on film. Taking photos were costly. We were selective on what we would shoot and print. Now we live in a digital age where we can take unlimited photos at no real extra cost. We take photos everywhere, anytime and of everything. Our computers are filled with digital photos documenting everything from birthday parties to burnt toast resembling Darth Vader. How often do we go to our computer and look at those photos? Almost never.

It’s not comfortable sitting at your computer clicking through thousands of photos. It’s even more uncomfortable having company over and telling them to gather around your desktop as you scroll through all your photos. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to sit on a couch and leisurely flip through the best of the best photos while chatting and having a drink?

We love to travel. When we travel we take quite a few photos, maybe too many, but we enjoy our travels so much and we want to remember each one. So Julie and I always make an album for each trip, one for Italy, one for French Polynesia, even one for our Maritime road trip. They are not fancy albums nor are they the greatest quality (we often use an online print site like Shutterfly), but hey they’re just travel photos, they don’t need to be fancy. How often do we go through these travel albums? … all … the … time! When we just feel like reminiscing, we pull them off the shelf. When guests come over, we hand them over and chat about it. The albums just sit on the shelf, easily accessible, short and concise. It’s unbelievably convenient! We have never shown our wedding photos to anyone because it just wasn’t convenient (actually, I’m not quite sure where the disc is; they should be somewhere safe, but I should probably find out where … eek).

I know I’m writing all over the place, but what I’m getting around to is that it was unexpected how much we regret not getting an album and how much more important they are over a disc of digital files. Our lack of viewing and sharing our wedding photos has nothing to do with the photos themselves; they are fantastic and we want to share them, it’s just not convenient to have only digital files to view. This isn’t something we really anticipated, but only now realize a couple of years later.

Throughout this post were album spreads from my sample album I made for Sandra and David’s day. I talked more about the album supplier in a recent post and I’m receiving another album soon, which I am excited to share with you too. Making the decision to get an album is difficult to make, and I’ll never urge someone to spend money they just don’t have. Although good quality albums can be expensive, I believe they are worth every penny and it’s an investment you will never regret.