Wedding photo albums and what to consider when booking one – words Alexa Wang
Your wedding is definitely one of the best and most beautiful moments of your life. As you newlyweds settle down, part of organizing your new home is keeping your precious wedding photos stored properly in photo albums. There’s more, however, to choosing photo albums than meets the eye. Here’s what you need to keep in mind when you canvas for the ideal wedding photo albums:
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Avoid buying albums that make use of adhesive backing
In your childhood, you must have been quite familiar with those photo albums that have pages with adhesive backing. All you or your parents had to do was place photos directly on the pages, and these would easily stick to the adhesive. The bad news is, adhesive becomes yellowish and brittle. The chemicals used for the album pages might likewise damage your printed photos over the years. Worse, it’ll be hard for you to take out photos from the adhesive backing years from now. You might even end up tearing photos by accident if you’re not careful when removing them from album pages.
As a good alternative, opt to order wedding photo albums that come with double-sided mounting tape that you may cut into small pieces and safely stick at the back of your photos. Then, place these photos in the albums. Doing so will ensure your photos are well-stored for years to come, with no damage to the photo paper.
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Choose a photo album that’s clearly labeled as photo-safe
Not all albums are created equal. Rather than assuming that the first album which catches your fancy will take care of your important photos, check the label or packaging if it indicates the album is certified photo-safe. This means that no chemicals were used in the production of the wedding albums, which could possibly damage your photos after years of storage.
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Check that the album you’re buying is lignin-free and acid-free
Since photos need to be stuck on durable paper, certain manufacturers add the chemical compound lignin to the album pages to make these strong. However, lignin eventually breaks down and emits acids, which will cause the album pages to become yellowish at first, and then brown through the years. Unfortunately, the lignin and the acids will likewise affect your photographs and damage these after a few years.
Make sure that the wedding photo album you buy clearly states that it’s indeed acid-free and lignin-free. If these things aren’t specified, it’d be risky to buy that brand of album.
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Purchase wedding photo albums that make use of plastic that’s safe for photographs
If you prefer to buy an album that contains sleeves or pockets for pictures, look for safe plastics such as Mylar, polypropylene, and polyethylene. These types don’t easily break down and produce acids that may damage your photos. Albums that make use of PVC plastic may cost cheap when you buy them. However, you might lose more money in the long run if your important photos get destroyed because they were stored within poor-quality plastic.
To avoid using plastic altogether, you may opt to buy beautiful albums with slip-in pocket pages. You’ll insert your photos in the slot of each album page instead of putting your photos into plastic sleeves.
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Select a classic and elegantly-designed photo album for your wedding pictures
Although there are many trendy and eye-catching designs, go for elegant photo albums in white, cream, or black covers that are also filled with the same color of pages. Selecting which wedding album to get is almost as equally important as planning a wedding itself, because these albums will help keep the memories of that special day intact. You would look at these albums decades from now, and pass them on to your children and grandchildren. As you’d want these albums to stand the test of time, opt for a design that’d still look beautiful many years from now.
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Consider the sizes of the pictures you want to include in your wedding album
Before you finalize your purchase or online order, select the photos you want to put in your wedding album and take note of the varying sizes and the number of photos per size. Typical wedding photos come in the following sizes: 4×6, 5×7, or 8×10. Depending on the sizes you need, you can choose if you’ll buy just one album with tailor-fit pages or you’ll purchase several matching albums to accommodate the different groups of photos with varying sizes.
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Get a supplier that can tailor-fit your album to the number of pages that you need
Don’t get stuck buying a thick and heavy wedding album when you don’t have very many pictures. Or, you may want to organize your numerous photos into thinner and lighter volumes for the sake of portability. Both preferences are perfectly fine, so look for a supplier that can give you the exact number of pages that you’ll need per album.
Conclusion
As a final note, choose wedding photo albums that will look beautiful when you display them on your shelves. You’d want the albums to blend in well with your books and shelf decor, or look elegant placed atop your coffee table. Remember that guests visiting your home would surely want to look through your lovely wedding photos, so buy albums that look regal and classy.
