Just WOW! Today's featured album design boasts a black tie garden party wedding at a historic Manor on Shelter Island and it is truly breath-taking! California-based photographer Scott Clark did a magnificent job capturing this bride's vision and we felt so honored to be able to lay out his images in an album design that tells the story of the magical day! 
 
This bride worked in fashion editorial for 13 years and she had a very specific vision that we love. She explains, "While I wanted the event to be formal, I also wanted it to be a bit irreverent with unexpected touches." How fabulous! 
 
As we've done in the past for Scott, we ended up creating 3 album designs for this family -- one for the couple and two different parent albums. Scott utilized strategy #2 from this blog post on parent album design strategies to use additional revision rounds from the couples' design to create the designs for each parent. In all it took 8 rounds of revisions to create all three designs. And today we are sharing the bride's parent album design with you! 
 
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this stunning design:

Click through the slideshow to see the design in full: 
 
 
 
Scott -- thank you so much for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!

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

The wedding we are featuring in today's album design took place April 4th, 2020, right as the stay at home order was placed for Alabama. Three weeks prior this couple was planning for a church/country club wedding with hundreds of guests for a seated dinner. Within 3 weeks they paired down to 75, 50, 25, and finally around 10 of their closest friends and family. They had a "drive by reception" that was a surprise for the couple. They moved their entire floral & rentals budget to their 10 person backyard wedding and it was gorgeous! The day was full of emotion in all of the best ways.  
 
Rebecca Long captured this intimate wedding and her favorite part of the day was the surprise exit for the couple - they put sparklers at the neighbors' houses with notes on when the leave would take place and the whole neighborhood (who was on quarantine and of course AT HOME - HAH!) came out to light sparklers on their street to see them off for the night!  
 
Rebecca did an amazing job capturing this wedding day and telling this incredible story that will be passed down through the album for generations to come!  
 
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this album design:

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 
 
 
Rebecca -- thank you so much for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!

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

Hey guys! Melissa Jill here! I've recently shared some of my strategies for solving common album workflow problems. But there are sure to be others that you've experienced that I haven't covered. No matter how hard I work on my photography business, problems inevitably arise. Welcome to being a business owner :). But the secret to really succeeding long-term in business is not just found in solving individual problems, but in systematizing solutions to each problem that arises so that you prevent it from happening again. That's how a business becomes more profitable and efficient over time. 
 
Think for a minute about an issue that you've recently dealt with in your business. Has a client been unhappy about something? Have you been frustrated that someone didn't understand how things worked or didn't get back to you in a timely fashion? Do you have that issue in mind? Good! I'm going to try to help you today to systematize a solution to it so you never have to go through something similar again. 
 
There's an analogy I like to use to help me explain systematizing a business, and help paint a picture of this effort as an ongoing process. I like to call it The Principle of Plugging Leaks. Let's say for some reason that you are in a dry river bed (just go with me on this). You know the water is coming, and you want to build a dam to help stop the water and protect something valuable to you on the other side. So you gather rocks and debris -- anything you can find around you -- to set up a sturdy dam. When you're done, you step back and admire your work. You look at it from every angle, trying to access where the holes might be. You do your best to build the dam well, but you don't really know how it will hold up until the water comes. You might even feel a little over-confident that it will be impenetrable. "No water is getting through this thing!" But when the water comes gushing through the river bed, you instantly see where the weaknesses are, because little streams of water are coming out the other side. For the most part, the dam holds up, but you are left plugging leaks. Occasionally another leak will crop up and you will need to plug that one, trying to make sure it holds up over time.  
 
Since this isn't a remarkably sophisticated analogy, you've probably figured out that the dam is the system you build for your business. Plugging the leaks will be an ongoing process -- we will never be completely done solving problems as business owners. But the goal should be to plug each leak or solve each problem by tweaking the system so that that specific issue does not arise again. 
 
Here are some of the common album-related issues that I myself have experienced and heard are common to other photographers: 
- Waiting forever for clients to pick their images 
- The client doesn't love the initial design and wants too many changes 
- The client wants to cram as many images as possible onto each spread, resulting in a cluttered design. 
- The client makes endless numbers of changes to the initial design. 
- The client is unresponsive and doesn't finalize their album in a timely manner. 
- The client is surprised or frustrated that the photographer designed their album larger than what they ordered and is trying to sell them additional pages. 
- After delivering a larger album design with the option to upgrade, the client doesn't respond quickly and ends up deciding against upgrading. 
 
If you continue to experience one of these issues, click on it and you will find another article with a solution I have systematized that has effectively solved it and removed this pain point from my workflow. If you don't see your issue above, or if you run into other non-album-related issues in your workflow, try to strategize a way that you can tweak what you do to prevent that same issue from happening again.  
 
1 -- Could you create a template email that you send out to your client at a certain point in their experience (or a .pdf you share with clients in your initial meeting) to better educate them and help you achieve the optimum result you desire? 
2 -- Could you create some type of incentive or deadline to help move things along and motivate your client? 
3 -- Could you change your contract to make something that a client has misunderstood more explicit so that expectations are better managed?  
 
Hopefully this gives you some ideas about how to systematize a solution to the specific issue you recently experienced. And next time a problem arises (and we all know it will), rather than beating yourself up or playing the blame game by being frustrated at your client or another vendor, you can use your energy to pre-empt that problem in the future by tweaking your system. 
 
Thanks for reading today! I hope you found something helpful here! As always -- this is a community and we love to hear from you and share a dialogue in the comments below. Have you had issues you've found creative solutions for? Share a comment so we can all benefit from your amazing wisdom!

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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

New Jersey-based photographer Tori Kelner was not expecting to photograph a dream elopement on the cliffs of Maine, but when her clients' wedding plans were impacted by COVID she found herself packing up and traveling to capture their memories in a stunning, romantic location. We've all been pushed to roll with the punches this past year and a half and this album design is the beautiful result of a lot of flexibility and perseverance. We love the story it tells! 
 
Tori is one of our beloved Client Advocates and we love working with her any chance we get! She was so kind to send us photos of the printed Miller's Lab album and we are so excited to share it with you today!

Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this design:

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 
 
 
Tori -- thank you for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!

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

Nashville-based Rebecca Denton is no stranger to this blog. She has been featured half a dozen times now because her work is just THAT GOOD. We can't get enough! Rebecca has recently rebranded and is shifting her niche to food photography, so we are working on the last few wedding albums she is sending our way and will be so sad not to see her friendly emails popping into our inbox as often. But it has been fun to see her make the shift and do it so well! Definitely check out her food and branding photography work here!  
 
Rebecca is one of our beloved Client Advocates, and she has this to say about her experience with outsourcing: 
 
Before I outsourced my album design process to Align, it would take me weeks or even months to get an album proof to my wedding couples. Now my couples have their album proofs immediately after receiving their wedding photos! Align's pro designers create beautiful album spreads quickly and efficiently, which impresses my clients while freeing up my time to focus on other business tasks. Outsourcing my wedding and bar mitzvah albums to Align has been one of the best business decisions I've made - I just wish I'd done it sooner! 
 
We had so much fun designing this album that is featured today! The floral, the brides' dresses, and their darling Save the Date card set the tone for a beautiful event! Rebecca had this album printed by Miller's Lab and was kind enough to take a photo of it for us!  
 
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this stunning design:

Click through the slideshow to see the design in full: 
 
 
 
Rebecca -- thank you once again for allowing us to work with your beautiful images! It's been an honor!

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