From wedding gallery to album: choosing, printing and sharing

This is the fifth and final part of The wedding photo plan. Last week covered collecting the photos and keeping them safe. This week is about what you do with them: turning a folder of several thousand files into an album, a few prints and something you can share.

Many couples put this off. The professional gallery arrives, everyone says how lovely it is, and a year later the album is still an idea. A plan with a few evenings in it gets it done.

Cull first, in three passes

Do not try to choose the album photos in one sitting. Go through everything three times, getting stricter each time.

1. First pass: yes or no, fast. Look at each photo for a second or two. Mark anything you like. Skip anything you are unsure about. Do this with the professional photos and the guest photos together, sorted by the time they were taken if your software allows.
2. Second pass: the story. Go through only your yeses and ask whether each one moves the day forward or repeats something you already have. Keep the best of five similar pictures, not all five.
3. Third pass: the album. Choose the pictures that tell the day in order. For a typical album, that often means around a hundred photos, depending on the page count and how many go on a page.

Do the first pass separately if you like, then compare. The pictures you both chose are the core of the album. The ones only one of you chose are worth a conversation.

Your photo brief from part one is useful here. Go back to the list of people and moments you most wanted. Check that each one is in the album, and look through the guest photos for any that the professional gallery missed.

Mixing professional and guest photos

A good album does not need to be all professional work. Guest photos often hold what the professional could not: the view from the tables during your vows, the chaos of the dance floor after midnight, your friends in the taxi home.

A few ways to mix them well:

• Let the professional photos carry the big moments. The ceremony, the portraits, the first dance. They are sharper and more consistent, and they print large.
• Use guest photos for the in-between. Small on the page, or grouped as a spread of four or six, they read as a collage of the day from the inside.
• Print guest photos smaller. A phone photo from a dim room looks fine at a small size and soft at a full page. If a guest photo matters to you and is not sharp, give it a small frame on the page rather than leaving it out.
• Keep the edits consistent. If your photographer delivered warm colour, a cold guest photo next to it will look out of place. Most photo apps let you warm it slightly. Black and white is another easy way to make mixed photos sit together.

If you collected guest photos in a Happily gallery, the hearts you and your guests added are a useful shortcut here: filter the gallery by favourites and start the first pass from those.

Choosing an album

Albums come in three broad kinds, and the right one depends on how you will use it.

• A professional flush-mount album, usually ordered through your photographer. Thick pages, lay-flat binding, made to last and to be handled. The most expensive option and often designed for you, with a round or two of changes.
• A printed photo book that you design yourself with an online service. Cheaper, quicker and good enough for many couples, especially for copies.
• Loose prints in a box or a traditional album with sleeves. Less designed, but easy to add to and pleasant to hand around.

Many couples combine them: one good album for themselves and smaller photo books for parents.

Prints for parents and grandparents

Parents and grandparents often care more about prints than anyone else, and many will never open a link. Some simple ideas:

• A small photo book of the day for each set of parents, using a shorter version of your own album. Photo book services usually make copies easy.
• A framed family photo from your list in part three for each grandparent. The large group of both families is often the one they want.
• A handful of loose prints of the grandparent with you, for their own fridge or shelf.

Order these before your own album if you are slow deciders. A grandparent would rather have the pictures soon than a perfect layout later.

Thank-you cards with photos

A photo on a thank-you card turns it into something people keep. Choose one picture that shows the whole feel of the day, or order a few versions: a family photo for relatives, a party photo for friends.

Send the cards within a few months of the wedding. If the professional gallery is slow, a good guest photo works fine, and it often means more to the guest who took it.

Sharing with people who weren't there

Some people you love could not come: a friend abroad, a relative who was ill, a grandparent who could not travel. A private link to a selection is the kindest way to share the day with them. Choose thirty or forty photos that tell the day in order, rather than sending the whole gallery.

Keep it private. A public social media post reaches people you never invited, and some of your guests will not want to appear there. Ask before posting photos where guests are clearly recognisable, and send everyone else a link they can open without signing up for anything.

The end of the plan

Here is what the whole series comes to, as a checklist you can come back to:

1. A one-page photo brief and a rough coverage count.
2. A timeline built around the light, with buffers.
3. A family photo list, a family wrangler and families told in advance.
4. Guest photos gathered, the professional gallery downloaded and three copies made.
5. A culled selection, an album ordered, prints for the family and cards sent.

If you are near the end of it, choose one evening this month for the first pass and put it in the calendar now. Order the parents' photo books straight after the third pass, before starting on your own album.