Wedding Photo Albums Suppliers

Wedding Photo Albums Suppliers

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arun1uk

Original Poster:

1,045 posts

198 months

Wednesday 27th August 2014
quotequote all
Afternoon PH collective. I look to you for superior knowledge - yet again!

I recently got married and had a couple of photographers at our Wedding. We decided not to buy a physical photo album from them as they were charging a rather large sum of money which I thought was unreasonable (£2k+). We have the photos on CD, so we wanted to make 2 x parent's albums, and a one nice luxury album for us.

My question is, there are lots of fantastic photographers in this sub-forum - so do you have any experience creating physical photo albums/books? Price? Not sure on budget as I have no idea what is good/bad!

Which companies do you use? I have researched Jorgensen Albums, but it looks like they only work with professional companies?

Any help would be appreciate

Cheers

MartinP

1,275 posts

238 months

Wednesday 27th August 2014
quotequote all
I'm a wedding photographer based in Berkshire and supply only Queensberry albums which in my opinion are the very best out there.

I'd be happy to chat about options and prices for getting some albums made up for you (see my profile for a link to my website).

tog

4,536 posts

228 months

Wednesday 27th August 2014
quotequote all
I use Folio for my albums. You will find that many of the wedding market album suppliers will only deal with professional photographers, both for simplicity of their marketing (B2B instead of direct to consumer) and so that photographers can offer something exclusive to customers.

And while I'm not saying £2k isn't a lot of money, and I don't know what album your photogrpahers were offering, do bear in mind a large, good quality, album will be several to many hundreds of pounds cost price, plus the time to do the layout, send you proofs, order, receive and check the final book, ship it to you, etc, and still make a profit.

arun1uk

Original Poster:

1,045 posts

198 months

Wednesday 27th August 2014
quotequote all
Thanks gents, yes understand it's going to cost a bit - but £2k is quite excessive in my view.

Anyone else have any further information they'd care to share too please? Might help some others out there too.

Simpo Two

85,422 posts

265 months

Wednesday 27th August 2014
quotequote all
If you want a photobook (ie with the images printed onto the pages then bound) there are dozens to choose from. Here's the relvant page from my website to get you started: www.blokewithacamera.co.uk/albums.htm

kman

1,108 posts

211 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
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I find this a little strange - did you not know what the album costs were likely to be before booking your photographer? As a professional photographer myself I'd be uncomfortable with designing and selling a book to someone using another photographer's images - since typically they would retain copyright to those images but I make it clear what the prices of albums are to my clients.

Digital album suppliers don't usually supply direct but to the trade - but its not unreasonable to charge something like 2k for say a Queensbury album given how much they cost from the manufacturer (don't forget to factor in the value of the images going into the album as well as the time, effort and creative expertise/experience of the photographer in designing as well as managing the order and thats something totally down to the photographer - I know some who charge 1k per extra spread!)

For cheap self-designed photobooks I'd recommend Albelli. For digital albums and matted albums I don't know any that won't supply to non-trade I tend to stick my preferred supplier Loxley Colour.

arun1uk

Original Poster:

1,045 posts

198 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
Nothing strange about it.

It costs a lot of money at the time, which we couldn't afford and our photographer has given us copyright ownership on our images. This gives us the best flexibility to source our own and scope out the market rather than being tied to one supplier. It's based on logic.

We are not asking any other photographer to do this for us - we're planning on doing this ourselves, which we understand may limit our choice of suppliers, hence asking the question.

Maybe you can't see it from a customer's perspective?

kman

1,108 posts

211 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
arun1uk said:
Nothing strange about it.

It costs a lot of money at the time, which we couldn't afford and our photographer has given us copyright ownership on our images. This gives us the best flexibility to source our own and scope out the market rather than being tied to one supplier. It's based on logic.

We are not asking any other photographer to do this for us - we're planning on doing this ourselves, which we understand may limit our choice of suppliers, hence asking the question.

Maybe you can't see it from a customer's perspective?
I can see it from the customer's perspective - as I get client's who ask similar questions all the time. But clients book me based on viewing my albums so then it makes little sense for them not to then order their own albums from me - they're booking me for my design work and because I always shoot with the album in mind (I already have layouts and designs in my head during the shooting). Anyway good luck finding a supplier there may be some out there apart from the usual ones (Albelli like I mentioned who I think are good for the type of products they offer).

For digital or matted albums Loxley Colour are my favourites but you could try Graphistudio, Jorgensen, Queensbury, Sim2000....

arun1uk

Original Poster:

1,045 posts

198 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
kman said:
I can see it from the customer's perspective - as I get client's who ask similar questions all the time. But clients book me based on viewing my albums so then it makes little sense for them not to then order their own albums from me - they're booking me for my design work and because I always shoot with the album in mind (I already have layouts and designs in my head during the shooting). Anyway good luck finding a supplier there may be some out there apart from the usual ones (Albelli like I mentioned who I think are good for the type of products they offer).

For digital or matted albums Loxley Colour are my favourites but you could try Graphistudio, Jorgensen, Queensbury, Sim2000....
Appreciate the advice, thanks for your help.

ruaricoles

1,179 posts

225 months

Thursday 28th August 2014
quotequote all
I took the photos for my sister's wedding last year and went round all the album suppliers at the Focus show beforehand; decided to go with SimImaging in the end, and found the design software easy to use and the books excellent. They were good value, still a few hundred quid in the end though. Lots of really stunning looking products out there if you're prepared to pay for them!

Simpo Two

85,422 posts

265 months

Friday 29th August 2014
quotequote all
I remember when I was researching albums for a customer (I don't do albums BTW) one poncy Italian one was £400 trade before it even had any photos in it. Crackers IMHO.