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What makes a great wedding album?

ByJon Low
Where do I start? If I were to draw an analogy, making wedding albums are like making a 2 hours movie that would be shown at the cinema, except that the movie is starring the bride and groom, not Emma Stone with Ryan Gosling. Not 2 hours long movie, but 50 pages, each and every page has a purpose. Everything else is more or less the same, just that we do not have multimillion dollar budget in producing it… 
In the process of making a feature-length movie, the screenplay being acted out, scenes planned are being executed. Usually according to plan, and often than not there are unplanned shots, all in the goal of having great footage to cut into a movie. I can draw parallels with that on a wedding day. I would photograph the planned wedding day whilst the sequence of events unfold.

Good design makes a beautiful album. But what is good design?

Good designs have a sense of purpose. A good design fulfils this purpose elegantly by thinking every expects of the product’s existence, and in our case, our product is our wedding album.
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The wedding album, if I were to put it grandly, it is a legacy, an heirloom, memories that are sealed up in a book designed to invoke a huge range of emotions when viewed during different stages of your life. The wedding album that we create today, is of great importance in your lives, not just for today but in the many years to come.

‎And, that’s the purpose of the wedding album.

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Timelessness‎

 

Timelessness is difficult because we all live today. What we see hip today, may as well be cheesy 10 years down the road. We probably wouldn’t notice that, until we live through that 10 years and look back.

A good wedding album, hopefully, would stand a test of time. We source for material that does not date the look and feel of the album. No fancy covers, no fancy overly design pages, with various text or quotes overlays. Just simple and classy photo arrangements. A technique that has been in photography since it’s existence. Proven… and let’s not recreate that.

Hopefully, as time goes by, the wedding album age with character. As the saying goes, age like fine wine.

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The many “NO!”s to a “YES!”

 Designing your wedding album requires focus. We are proud of the photographs that we include, and those we decide not to include. Because, every page of your album should bring delight, joy and perfection.We remove the clutter, to enhance the focus. We magnify greatness with masterpieces, and not with volume. We simplify, so timelessness will stand out.

We remove the clutter, to enhance the focus.

Heck, we’ve made a video to see if all these works.

 

Meet Eva and Shawn, they were a Jon Low Studios bride and groom in 2009…. and meet Micah, their first born. A couple of years back, I’ve caught up with Eva if she would assist me in making a point in owning a wedding album. Here is a video that we shot of Micah reviewing the album for the very first time in his life. The video premise was staged, as in the reason they were having this conversation was for this video. But whatever happened in the video is Micah’s very first time flipping through the wedding album.

In reality…..

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 As much as this article speaks volume about how to make great wedding albums, it is also a constant reminder to myself and my team to try our best to be on point, all the time.It is an on-going challenge between bride and groom and the artistry all of us here at JLS. The end result of the work is somewhat co-owned. Hence the challenge of designing a wedding album that conforms to the ideas of best practices versus the rightful owner of the album for the rest of their lives, but I digress.As we have been doing this long, it’s easy to form muscle memory, habits, good and bad. And by writing this piece, it helps me to remind myself to follow what I think a great album would be. Hopefully, goodness prevails.And if everything else fails, the albums are designed to be the best paperweight around. Perfect to be kept under the bed, or in a cupboard. Hopefully, one day, you will learn the real value of having that album.

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