Ron;
Thanks for your thoughts. And thanks to those who emailed me privately to point out that I misspelled the bride's name!! (Blush) It's been fixed.
I'd love for you to see what people actually purchase -- this layout is very representative of the variey of images in my wedding albums. I shoot, the bride and groom send me a list of images to include in the book, and I design the book, using either Montage (Art Leather) for a traditional matted book, or Photoshop, to create page collages that are printed out and bound by various methods. The largest book I have done was actually a three volume set, with each book about 40 pages (sides) and a total of over 200 seperate images. The final bill was more than $2000 over the original contract, with no hard sell from me whatsoever. I just take pictures I like, give them a CD and a set of plain paper inkjet index sheets (12 images per page), and they tell me which ones they want. Everything is priced a la carte, with enough for a basic album included in the contract. Anything over that is additional, on a print by print, page by page basis. Sometimes I just shake my head -- I love doing the still life stuff, and it's so much fun that couples include them in their books, often featured more prominently than some of the portraits.
I try and connect emotionally with brides (and to a lesser extent grooms, but let's get real -- we know who is in charge!). They often put a lot of thought into these decorations, and the "atmosphere" of the event is very important to them. After the wedding that atmosphere dissapears with the leftover coldcuts and cake -- putting it in the "Wedding Storybook" (thank you Gary Fong for that concept) allows them to relive it when they look at the images.
This is also why I ALWAYS try to get a good, artistic (ie., warm fuzzy, artsy fartsy) image or series of images of the back of the wedding dress, while she is wearing it (no jokes about butt shots, please -- use a long lens and no one has to feel uncomfortable). The detail on the back of the dress is the most elaborate of the garment, it is what caught her eye when she saw it in the bridal shop or magazine, it is an important part of the visual impression she chose to give an entire congreagtion as she stood before them, but it is the only part of the dress she can't see while she is wearing it! It goes in the book everytime, and usually as an 8x10 if I am also succesful at getting a mother's, sister's, and/or grandmother's signature hands doing a bustle or fastening a bow. Of course it entirely loses any magic if it is done as a contrivance of the photographer, but that's another discussion.
I have been using the low rez scans that I provide as proofs to do album mockups that are posted on the net for approval, before we actually make the book. Here are a few album layouts (forgive the bad color -- remember these are proofs, from weddings shot on film)that will give you an example of what couples actually choose to purchase. They are selecting these images usually from about 800 or so images that I provide on CD:
http://64.70.137.185/amyandrick2/index.htm http://64.70.137.185/olzak/2/index.htm http://64.70.137.185/joyandscott/index.htm
I shoot it -- they choose it -- I make it -- they buy it. I love my job.
[This message has been edited by Andy Pauquette (edited April 01, 2001).]
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