Photographer's Photo Album or Make Your Own

I just made that decision recently with my photographer minus the extra person shooting. I would rather choose my own photos to put in albums for myself & parents. You get the pictures back much quicker too when you do it all yourself. Hope this helps.

See if the photographer will allow you to choose which images to include in the album! Our photographer is going to have us choose when the time comes. I personally love not having to put it together myself and still have a very professional and nice album that will hold up for a long period of time. Also an extra photographer is always a bonus, since they can gather shots of the same scene from a different angle.

The photographers I have been talking to will put together a tentative album and ask us if we're ok with it or if we wanna change pictures. They sure have a talent for it know how to tell a story so I like that a lot

Often times, the photographer will ask the customer to pick out 40-50 of their favorite photos and must have photos and then put those into an album. If it's your photographer's specific style for designing an album that you don't like, you still might not be happy with the album, even if you pick what photos go in it.

If you're confident in your photographer and like their album style (hopefully you already love their shooting style!) go with an album from him/her. If it's primarily price, you can do an album yourself. However, please don't use Shutterfly/Snapfish/etc. Sites like that don't do justice to professional wedding photos. If you're going to make an album yourself, use a quality lab like Nations Photo Lab. They have great quality albums starting at $79-$99. If you plan to make an album yourself, make sure you follow through. Otherwise, you'll just have digital images to look at and that's hardly as dreamy and fun to look at as a physical photo album

I really love the photographer's style. And her personality is amazing too.

Maybe I am old-fashioned with photos. I never saw a photo album have photos blended to fill the pages. It was very beautifully done. I guess maybe I'm just not used to seeing it. Is that how most professional albums from photographers are done?

I'd have to see exactly what you're talking about to know what you when mean by "blended", but if it's what I'm thinking of, yes. Do you mean the edges of photos are faded out? Yes, that is an effect that can be done. Photo edges can be hard, rounded, faded. Usually there will be a couple photos per page (not always just one per page), except for a few pages with spreads/highlighted photos taking up the entire page.

If you love her style and love the way the albums look (even if it's not what you initially think of for photo albums), that's what's most important; go for it

I have quite a few pro photographer friends and each designs their albums differently. Pros albums are typically better quality than shutterfly. I personally would not use shutterfly. If you want to design your own album, I'd search out companies that specifically do professional quality wedding albums. This might not save you any money on the long run and you still have to do the work to get it the way you want it, unless you are a designer and are up for the creation! So like Rachel I say if you like the style enough I'd say use what the photographer is offering!

$3200 gives you all that? I would go with the photographer's albums if you like the quality.

We paid $3100 for 11 hours with 2 photographers, a 2-hour engagement photo session, and USB of all images (edited and in high resolution). We'd have to pay a minimum of $500 for an album so at the moment we've decided to do our own either through Adorampix Hudson album or Photobook Canada flush mount album.

Oh I forgot about the engagement session. It comes with that too. The original package was 2 parent books but I asked how much would an additional book be since my parents are divorced and she said she would give me the third one free if I get the bigger package.

After reading everyone's comments I did look up the cost of albums on their own and they look pretty pricey. Maybe it might be better to just have her do everything. I don't know if I would be saving much if I do it on my own. She does have degrees in computer graphics.

It's better to let the photographer handle the album, too many couples who plan on doing their own never get it done, nor do hey have access to the same labs. I'd rather include albums and give a customer tangible goods, rather than a USB drive of photos they will never do anything with.

We did our own album and it was way cheaper.