Are your wedding photos worth the spending?

Most of us paid at least a few thousands ringgit to the bridal shop for the photo album and a few framed enlarged photos to be put in our bedroom. Usually this is also the key area whereby the pre-negotiated price of the bridal service package gone up in the later stage. Some of my friends even have the price double up due to additional photos to include in the album after the commonly used "once in a lifetime" pursuasion dose was induced during the photo selection session.

I find that for most people (including me), those photos taken indoor at the bridal shop's studio as well as outdoor at some common wedding scenic places and compiled into a big nice album, will eventually be sitting quietly in the cupboard or store room since a few months after the wedding event. Now the question: is the few thousands spending on those photos really worthwhile?

In my humble opinion, real life photos of the actual event days (which are also "once in a lifetime") are always more valuable and memorable than the acting photos taken to produce the wedding album. It is wise to use the same budget or allocate more budget to emphasize more on the photo shoting during the actual event days, such as the engagement day, signing ceremony of marriage certificates (yes it is plural, because you need to sign at least 2 copies. I signed 4 copies - 2 original certs and 2 international transcripts), and the actual wedding day.

It is always a good idea to hire an experienced professional wedding photographer and/or videographer to take photo/video during those important days. The photographer should know well the procedures, always standby in good position to take the most natural shots of memorable moments. Those moments are really "once in a lifetime", and if you missed to capture it into picture or video at the moment, any retake won't be meaningful to you. The photographer should produce albums similar to the one done by the bridal shop as well, and give you all the films or JPEG images (for digital photos) together with the albums as the deliverables.

In fact, I find that studio bridal photography is not really "once in a lifetime". Some people who doesn't satisfy with the work at one bridal shop will just go and retake the photography at another shop. Even after the wedding, you can also always go to the bridal shop with your spouse and take the bridal photography if you want.

Therefore, you should put more emphasis, and budget more, for the photo shooting during the actual event days which are "once in a lifetime" and really happening (not acting), rather than the studio bridal photography. Then you'll feel the spending is worthwhile.