Over the past 8 years we have designed close to 40 album designs for South Carolina based wedding photographer Britt Croft. She is SO talented! You can see more of her designs we've featured over the years here! Britt prefers cleaner spreads with fewer images and tends to lean towards a "filmstrip" layout preference - where there is white space around the images, especially the top and bottom, to let the images breathe a bit and tell a story.  
 
Like so many of the weddings we are featuring here on the blog of late, the wedding in this album was impacted by COVID. The couple was scheduled to get married in May of 2020 and ended up pushing their LARGE celebration back by one full year yet moving forward with an elopement on their original wedding date. We are so glad we were able to be a part of creating this album to tell the story of their marriage celebration and the resulting Madera album that is pictured throughout this post! 
 
A huge thanks to Britt for sending us some photos of the printed album! We love how it turned out! Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this showcase-worthy design:

Click through the slideshow to see the design in full: 
 
 
 
Thank you, Britt, 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

Sean + Kat are a husband and wife wedding photography team based out of Kentucky that we have had the pleasure of working with a number of times now. This particular wedding stood out to us and after reading their blog post about it, we now understand why! It was such an amazing event where 150 people who all knew and loved one another came together around this couple to celebrate a friendship that blossomed into love. It sounds like it was an incredible thing to witness, and the beauty and joy certainly oozes through the pages of this design! 
 
One other thing of note about this album design -- it was approved with NO REVISIONS! haha! In our world -- that is something worth celebrating! 
 
Without further ado, here are a few of our favorite spreads from this stunning design:

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 
 
 
Thank you, Sean & Kat, for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!

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Design by: Shannon (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

Hey guys! Melissa Jill -- Align's founder here. I not only started Align, but I'm the longest running client OF Align -- haha! Our talented designers design all of my albums for my photography business. Every Thursday we feature a design here on the blog and this week, we're featuring one of my very own! Heather and Brent were married at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona in March of this year and it was a GORGEOUS day. I still can't get over the desert landscape, the mountain views, and how all the colors from this day translated on film!  
 
This particular album was initially sold in my package with 17 spreads. I used my pre-designing up-sell workflow and presented the clients with a design showcasing a stunning story of the day with 25 spreads. They ended up upgrading and including all 25 spreads in their printed album! I am so grateful they did and that they have such a gorgeous heirloom in their home now to pass on to the generations to come!  
 
Here are a few of my favorite spreads from this beautiful design:

To see the design in full, click through the slideshow: 
 

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

Virginia-based wedding and editorial photographer Rebekah J Murray is a delight to work with! We have been designing albums for her for 8 years now and her designs have been featured as favorites on our blog here time and time again!  
 
One thing Rebekah has done a great job of is communicating her design preferences. We always keep design preferences for each photographer on file so that we can make sure to nail first drafts no matter which designer is working with them. Rebekah prefers designs that have spreads with lots of negative space balanced by pages with full bleed images...somewhere in between our Classic and Simple design styles.  
 
This particular design was approved with NO REVISIONS and the final files were delivered just 5 days after the order was placed. There were two key things that really facilitated this quick turn-around: 
 
1. Rebekah's communication of her design preferences (see above).  
2. Rebekah selected the 'use all images sent' option on her order form AND she carefully curated the image selection she sent us. Photographers can either select for us to use all the images that are sent in the design OR to have the designer select the best images for the design from a selection of images that are sent. Truthfully either option works great, but in this case, the combo of the "use all" option and the fact that Rebekah selected a good amount of photos & didn't have very many one-off images that didn't flow with the rest made for a quick approval with no revisions needed.  
 
Yay for fast turn-arounds and quick approvals!!  
 
We love how this design turned out! Here are a few of our favorite spreads:

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

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