We have a beautiful album to show-off to you today! It's a stunner! Palm Beach wedding photographer Morgan O'Neil photographed this wedding up in Plymoth, Massachusetts and we really enjoyed working with her and her clients to tell the story of this day! We have designed close to 50 albums for Morgan over the past 5 years and it's always a delight to work with her! 
 
Morgan printed this album through RedTree Albums and sent us these photos of the finished album. We love the combo of the neutral linen and gold debossing! 
 
Enjoy these photos and a few of our favorite spreads from this stunning design: 

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 
 
 
Thank you, Morgan, for trusting us to be a part of your team!

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Design by: Kari (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill

Hey photographers, it's Align founder and pro-photographer Melissa Jill here! Let's talk about something I believe every photographer should include as a part of their service and offerings -- parent albums! 
 
Parent albums are duplicate or slightly-altered copies of the main album you've already created for the bride & groom. While they usually have the same design on the inside pages, the size of the album is typically smaller and more light-weight than the bride and groom's album. If you are NOT currently offering parent albums as a core part of your photography packages, I would encourage you to do so!  
 
I feel strongly about offering parent albums for a few good reasons that can be separated into how they benefit not only your client, but also YOU!  
 
BENEFITS FOR THE CLIENT:

• Regardless of who is paying for the wedding photography, parent albums are in high demand. It just makes sense to offer them since so many clients want them. Parent albums are such an easy YES for clients because they serve as the ideal memento to look back on and relive the celebration they just poured so much time and valuable resources into.
 

• They are the perfect "thank you" gift from the bride and groom to honor how their parents have supported them throughout the process of getting married! 
   
  
• And if the parents are the ones paying for the photography, they often want a keepsake for themselves to be able to cherish all of their memories from the event!
 

BENEFITS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS:

• Offering parent albums boosts your bottom line and adds value to your services. Within my own photography business, I find that out of the couples who purchase albums, about 1/2 of them will also include parent albums for a fairly painless price point of $300 - $500. To set the price for your own clients, I suggest you mark up the amount you're paying your album printing & binding company by 200-300%. Note that this is lower than the pricing I suggest for the original copy of the album.
 

• The design work is already done! My parent albums have the exact same design as the bride & groom's original album which keeps things uncomplicated and simple. And for those of you who have clients who desire a little more customization in terms of altering the original design for parent albums... check out our blog post on the parent album design/revision strategies we've used here at Align to help photographers painlessly create multiple album designs for the same wedding! 
  
 

• You get additional exposure and marketing of your amazing work. The parents will be showing off their high quality parent album to their circle of friends -- people who may not be exposed to the bride & groom's copy!
 

Pretty straightforward and hard to argue, right?  
 
Offering parent albums as part of your ever-evolving photography service is a no brainer and an instant win-win. Your clients will be thrilled to have the option to purchase something so beautiful and significant for their loved ones, the value of your service will increase with the additional product, and there's very little effort needed to bring in some extra income! 
 
If you found this post helpful and would like to receive tips like this straight to your inbox, click here to sign up!

And exciting news! If you're a photographer who wants to start offering albums without investing hours of guesswork and trial and error -- we have a solution for you! Check out the Album Start-Up Kit and start maximizing your profit today! 

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Blog post written by: Melissa Jill

We have done 160 designs for Michigan based wedding photographer Jean Smith in the last decade! We are HUGE fans of her and her work and are always googly-eyed over her finished designs. Her documentary style lends itself so well to story-telling and we love the mix of black and white and color images that she prefers.  
 
Today's featured design is another Jean Smith classic and we are proud to report that this design was finished from order form to approval button in one week flat! We love being able to turn around designs, take care of client revisions, and deliver final files for printing so fast so that photographers can check one more task off their never-ending to do list!  
 
Jean is one of our beloved Client Advocates. Click here to hear Jean share about two mistakes she regrets making when she started her business AND see some of her other featured designs over the years! 
 
This design turned out SO stunning! Here are a few of our favorite spreads:  

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 
 
 
Thank you, Jean, for trusting us to be a part of your team!

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Design by: Shannon (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill

Today's featured wedding album design is a STUNNER. It is 31 spreads (62 pages) and each spread has you more excited than the next!  
 
San Francisco based wedding photographer Eileen Roche of Buena Lane Photography likes a mix of our Classic and Simple design styles and so this design has a great mix of more minimal spreads with fewer images and then some busier spreads that capture so much of the flavor of this unique wedding day!  
 
The bride shares, "Derek and I are both half Cantonese and grew up in the Bay Area. We love our reception venue because we feel it is the perfect homage to our past and future. It reminds us and our families of banquets of the past (some of our family has quite literally been to banquets at the Four Seas) but the food is done is such a fresh, unique and California centric way that represents the way we love to eat as a couple. We love the colors, lights and lushness of the space (all that velvet!) because it does feel like such a nod to the richness of California Chinese culture and a departure from the blush and white tones of a traditional wedding."  
 
In addition to holding the ceremony on the grand staircase of San Fransisco's City Hall, they also had lion dancers welcome guests to the reception and tourists were stopping to take pictures and ask if celebrities were in town! A shout-out goes to The Framework Events and florist Bloomwell & Co for their amazing work on this event! 
 
Eileen had this album printed through Madera Books and used our Send-to-Print option to simplify the ordering process and send the final files directly from our proofing software to her printing company. 
 
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this gorgeous design:

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 
 
 
Thank you, Eileen, for trusting us to be a part of your team!

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Design by: Rachel (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill

Today's featured album design is a massive 40 spread/80 page album that we designed for Ohio Wedding photographer Jessica Vidmar Photography! Jessica printed the album through Album Epoca and was kind enough to send us some photos of the printed album. It's always such a treat to see albums we design in their finished form! 
 
Larger album designs afford us the ability to use fewer images per spread, which in many ways elevates the design and makes your photography shine! In this album, you will notice that we included 4 spreads with just one image full bleed -- like this one of the bridal party: 

Jessica definitely sent us so many images that were worthy of being used LARGE in the design! 
 
Jessica shared this fun fact about this beautiful wedding: "The venue is called Tenk in Cleveland, Ohio. And when I first met the bride Jillian she said she fell in love with the venue and actually changed her wedding colors to copper with greenery and white instead of navy and blush like she was originally planning because of the look of the venue. I remember her saying 'once the venue picks you, you plan around that' -- lol!" 
 
Smart move!  
 
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this lovely design:

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 
 
 
Thank you, Jessica, for trusting us to be a part of your team!

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Design by: Kari (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill