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Wedding Photographers

September 3, 2019

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Kelly McKinnis

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Tips for Brides

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The Top 3 Reasons Why You Need an Heirloom Wedding Album

She sat down at the table to see a beautiful white box tied together with a perfect blue ribbon.

Looking at her now husband with excitement, she slowly pulled on the ribbon and opened the box to reveal what was inside.

“OH MY GOSH! IT’S PERFECT!!” She said… before she even had a chance to flip through it, she knew right away that her album was everything she had wanted and more.

She grazed her fingers along their names embossed on the leather cover, squealing with excitement as she finally flipped the cover open to see her wedding photos in real life for the first time.

Matlock and Kelly - Heirloom Wedding Albums

As she flipped through the thick pages, she got to one page and stopped. Her eyes getting teary, she looked up and said, “I can’t believe you captured this photo of my grandparents together. Only a few weeks after our wedding my grandpa unexpectedly passed away, and we didn’t know this would be the last photo they’d have together. This image means everything to me. Thank you so much.”

As they got to the end of their heirloom album, they smiled at one another and said, “let’s look at it again!”

And THAT’S why we do what we do. THAT’S why we create heirloom wedding albums.

Because while we love taking beautiful images, it’s only one part of what we do.

You see, we wouldn’t be doing our job correctly as photographers if we just gave you your images and called it a day. Because we know the likelihood of you printing out your images or creating your own album at a later date is unlikely. And the last thing we want is for your memories to be left on a computer or external hard drive and rarely looked at and celebrated.

So, with that, we wanted to share why we are so passionate about albums and why we highly encourage all couples to get one!

1. It’s your family’s first heirloom

Okay, you probably hear this word all the time, but what is an heirloom album and is it just a fancy word photographers use?

An heirloom is a valuable object that has belonged to a family for several generations.

And an album is often passed down from you to your children, and then to their children, and so on. So, no, it’s not just a fancy word – it really is the very first heirloom of your new family – which is pretty dang awesome if you ask us!

2. You’ll get to look at your images in real life… forever

Interesting enough, back when our parents and grandparents got married, it was uncommon to NOT have a wedding album. It was tradition to have an album filled with memories from your wedding day, and people LOVED to show them off. Even to this day my own grandma absolutely loves taking out her children’s wedding albums and showing them to us (her grandchildren).

Matlock and Kelly - why you need a wedding album

But now, with the internet, social media and digital cameras, it’s more uncommon to have a physical album or physical prints of your images. But let me be honest with you for a second. When you receive your digital images, you’ll (hopefully) download them all and put them on an external hard drive or USB stick thinking you’ll just pop it back into your computer and look through them whenever you want. But, the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim. Life happens, and because your images are out of sight, out of mind… you kind of forget about them. Whereas your album is in front of you, on your coffee table and you can easily reach for it to flip through, whether its by yourself, with your best friends or with your mom to relive one of the best days ever!

Plus, nothing beats being able to see and feel your images in real life. Each image has so much more impact when its off the screen!

3. You get to see some of the best reactions ever

Just imagine… your two best friends are over at your place for coffee and to catch up. They sit on your couch and one of them says, “Oh! Is this your album??”

“Oh yeah! We just got it from our photographer. Here, let’s look through it!” But of course, she’s already got the album opened to the first page by the time you sit down next to her.

All three of you are huddled around this little 10×10 book that holds some of the best memories you’ve ever had.

“Omg. I never even got a chance to see this photo of all three of us!” One of them says. And as you flip the page, your other friend says, “Oh wow, look at his smile as you’re walking down the aisle – I LOVE that! Ugh. You two are so cute together.”

As you guys go through the rest of the album, you’re all reminiscing about how amazing that day was and how much fun you all had – and yeah, that cake was DELICIOUS!

Now that’s priceless.

But it only gets better when you bring an album to your grandparents. Your grandparents barely know how to use the touch screen in a car let alone how to work an online gallery on the computer. So, they haven’t really even had a chance to see the photos from your wedding yet – this is the first time they’ll see everything.

You give them the box and your grandma slowly takes it out while saying, “oh wow, this is heavy!” You smile and wait for her to open it up.

They’re both huddled over the album, flipping through pages, and are in complete awe. Your grandma can’t wait to show off her beautiful granddaughter to her friends. Your grandpa is excited he can see all the other parts of the wedding he wasn’t able to see while he was there.

They close the book and they have the biggest smiles with the happiest tears in their eyes. Their granddaughter is all grown up, but now they can look back on all the  beautiful photos as often as they’d like. They’re not constricted to only seeing images on Facebook or through a text message.

And that… that’s the beginning and continuation of a legacy. You’re beginning your new legacy with your new husband, but at the same time you’re continuing the legacy of the generations behind you.


We really do hope that this shows you why we are so passionate about albums and why we encourage all couples (not just ours) to order an album as part of their wedding collection. If you ever have any questions about albums and our album process, feel free to either ask in the comments below or emailing us at hello@matlockandkellyphotography.com. We’re super punctual and will get back to you within 24 hours! Until next time, friends!

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