As a wedding photographer in 2012, when a potential client first contacts me one of the things that they expect to get out of my services is a copy of the digital negatives. It’s rarely even talked about as a possibility, it’s just assumed in this digital age. If you’re going to have your wedding photographed digitally, you are going to receive all of the photographs. Done. People want to have access to all of the pictures from their wedding.

Trust me, I understand the importance of having these files. They are wonderful to be able to share with loved ones and keep safe. But these digital files by themselves are not the total story of your wedding. Hard drives crash. DVD’s have a limited life span. Even USB Flash Drives corrupt. In short, digital files are not enough. This is why I always tell my clients that digital files are not final step in your wedding photography. They are only a step along the way.

Printed pictures do not have this problem. Our physical art products, whether they are fine art albums or metal prints, are designed to last. Our hand made wedding albums are not only meant to tell the story of your wedding right now, but also fifty years from now and beyond. Our fine art photographic prints are likewise meant to be enjoyed for generations to come. These works of art are your first family heirlooms from one of the most important days in your life.

Of course it’s easy to think that once you have access to the digital files from your wedding photographer, you don’t need to purchase printed products. After all, if you have the digital files you can do that anytime down the road, right? While you could, in practice it doesn’t happen very often. When I asked my past clients that only received digital files what they had done with them, most revealed that the photographs had only gone as far as Facebook. One couple even admitted to losing the files. Ouch.

Then there is the quality issue. If you were to have prints made from your digital files, who is going to be the print maker? One often overlooked fact is that to print a photograph properly, each file must be uniquely prepared for the various physical sizes and paper types that it can be printed on. Unfortunately, there is not a one size fits all option for printing. To do it right, everything is done by hand. This is why our finished products look as amazing as they do and why I am so proud to offer them to our clients.

I love wedding photography and creating amazing works of art for my clients. This is exactly why we provide our clients with both digital files and physical products. It also brings me to one of my first questions for clients that contact me: What do you want to receive from your wedding photography? Are you only looking for digital files? Or do you also want art that you can always enjoy?