In part two of our protecting your wedding pictures we explore how to care for your storybook album.
Wedding albums have changed over the years by leaps and bounds. The artistic design, time and investment into these lovely keepsakes make protecting these investments more important. Replacing the album if it becomes damaged or ruined is sometimes more expensive then the first time you purchased it.
Showing Off Your Album:
Showing your album to friends and family is the next exciting thing then the wedding itself. When showing your album and flipping pages you should make sure hands and fingers are clean and free from oil, and dirt. Hold your pages by the edge of the corners and try not to touch inside the album. The best thing to have on hand is photo gloves. These are light weight, lintless gloves made for photo paper. They protect the photo paper from oil and materials found on our hands that can scratch or harm the photo. Some albums offer a special coating that also helps protect each page for an additional fee. Check with you photographer for the album you are looking at to see if it is an option to add this feature. Don’t fret if it’s not, just using lintless photo gloves made for photos when worn will protect your storybook pages and prints from oil, and dirt that’s still left over from after washing our hands.
You’re Album & Digital Negatives:
Photographers typically keep your digital negatives or files for only a year once the contract is complete. Some wedding photographers offer a fee to keep your files or negatives active with them. If your digital files or negatives are not purchased with that initial contract or within the first year of your wedding day the desire and cost to replace a storybook wedding album once damaged is usually more than a newly married couple can afford.
If the photographer by chance has your wedding negatives your album typically will need to be recreated from scratch the cost involve then will include the time it takes to design the album again and getting it to look similar to the one you had along with the album being assembled. Album prices increase yearly as materials for them increase too. Album colors and styles also become discontinued yearly. So how to protect your storybook to avoid these unfortunate expenses?
Protecting the Album:
Some wedding photographer’s album lines include photo cases, covers and boxes that help protect the storybook album from everyday life when on the coffee table. While some album lines include these options at no additional cost to protect your album, there are still many album lines that do not include this and this option is an additional purchase for the bride and groom. So when booking your wedding photographer, check if the album line you are looking at has a way that protects the album.
Once the album is home consider adding it to your fire/water proof safe when not in use. Make sure the safe has plenty of room to keep the album from not being damaged from other materials you place in the safe. If you want to display your album then see if your home owner’s insurance carrier offers a personal articles rider where you can see about insuring just the album. Some carries may be able to write an additional insurance policy to cover the expense of replacing it over time. There is usually a monthly or yearly premium to pay for this type of coverage. You should keep your storybook album in a fire/water proof safe and free of dampness or wet areas such a basement and avoid sunlight because of the material and paper used to create these lovely storybooks can become damage when exposed to these elements. As we discussed before with wedding prints and now with albums you should also include your digital negatives disc in the safe too. Your digital negatives should also have a copy of them on another disc that can be stored at a parent’s house in case of storm damage from flooding or tornados. Even a backup to an online photo hosting platform is a great way to insure you have a copy of the negatives. Be sure when making your copy that you also copy your photo release if you have one from your wedding photographer and keep that safe.
It’s okay to take your album out and show it off but be sure that you place it back in a safe place free of damage from kids, animals, new husbands and the many other elements mentioned in this article.
Our article was written in response to a newly married couple we heard about that had shown their storybook wedding album to friends and happened to lay the album on a toaster oven as they said good bye to friends and walked them out. As with busy lives the album didn’t get put back. The oven knob got bumped without knowing it. Burning holes through the album cover and pages and almost burning the house down. So to keep all those happy memories safe and cherished we just had to write this article series.
