10th Anniversary Wedding Album

Advice to photographers: Don’t make your own wedding album.

I thought that I was clever when I declined our wedding photographer’s invitation to make us a nice album. “I’ll make my own. I know how to do this,” I thought. 

I bought a beautiful big book, with black pages, 13x13" in size. The plan was to put the 4x6 snaps in with old-fashion black photo corners, and throw in a couple of dozen 8x10s to make it special and dynamic. But the task was just too intimidating. Once every few years I’d break out the boxes of snaps (we requested that our photographer shoot film, not digital) and attempt to sort them. I’d get two or three hours into it then put them all away, with little concrete progress.

Finally at our 9th Anniversary I swore that I’d do it - whatever it took. I had a year to complete it - and like a real photographer, I waited until the last minute to truly tackle it. 

This time I took a different approach, rather than organizing first, I ordered the enlargements first. And here is where having the resources of a professional shooter come in handy, as the prints were made by some of the top printers in New York. The color ones by Gunar Roze, and the black-and-white by Griffin Editions.

Amazingly I managed to keep the project a secret from my wife. This morning, as I was showing our four-year-old daughter some pictures from the wedding on the laptop, I managed an awkward segue saying, “Maybe you’d find them easier to see in this form,” and handed her and my wife the completed album. "You didn’t…” was all she could get out before she was speechless, as she began to relive that day from ten years ago today.

All photographs in the post (except the fourth one) by Willi Wong Photography.