Some of the trends in wedding photography moving into 2012, is to hire a professional photographer, who's work you like and you are comfortable with, purchasing the high resolution images, and creating your own album or creating an album at a later time, after the wedding.
Although our studio has seen a rise in this trend, the majority of the couples we meet, have an album and parent albums included with their package.
Since our studio, is a full time photography and video production company, most of our wedding packages include and album, and since our studio employs our own graphic designers, we have a tremendous amount of creative control over the final album design.
It is however, important to understand what the differences are in albums and album designs. I am sure that the following advice may differ from one part of the country to another, but album labs, are all over the world and are used by studios from all over the world, so there should be some common ground.
There are two primary forms of albums, a traditional Matted album, which has images, inserted into a matt on an album page. You may have a matted page which can accommodate multiple images, and you can have both landscape and portrait.
Next are Seamless, Flush-mount Albums. There is some confusion out there, as different studios, use different terms to describe their albums or differentiate themselves from the competition. These albums will have no seem, and have a "full bleed", meaning a coverage area from edge to edge, offering more room for additional images and graphic design work.
Flush-mount albums will vary in thickness, sizes, and design. Simple collage pages can be created with pre-template software, similar to those found on popular web sites, which allow you to create your own albums. Some albums, require a little custom work with backdrops, taken directly from your wedding. Lastly, there are full custom albums, which are designed by a graphic artist which works with each couple, that will review each page of the album and provide direction to the designer, to ensure their album looks exactly the way they would like.
Most studio, have their albums designed by the lab they work with. Although the designs are often pre-templates, in some cases they rival those of a graphic artists, however, they usually do not offer many or any changes, and if there are changes, they will come at a price.
There are also studio, which offer a staff graphic artist to work with each couple to create their album. These custom layout allow for more images in your album and ensure that you are getting exactly what you want, since you are working with the artists and seeing your album as it is being created.
This may be a-lot of information, but it's important since your album and photographs are what you will have once your wedding day is over.