Designing a wedding album from the couple's favorites

Ask the couple for one favorites list of about 2 to 3 times the number of photos the album will hold, then design the album yourself. Do not ask them to pick the final set, and do not ask them to lay it out. A 30-spread album holds roughly 90 to 120 photos as a rule of thumb, so ask for 200 to 300 favorites, expect to get 150, fill the story gaps from your own selects, present one draft, allow 2 rounds of changes, and order. The steps are below, with the numbers.

The counts

Album	Spreads	Photos it holds (rule of thumb, 3 to 4 per spread)	Favorites to ask for
Small, 10 x 10	15	45 to 60	100 to 150
Standard, 12 x 12	25	75 to 100	150 to 250
Large	30 to 35	90 to 140	200 to 300
Parent album, 8 x 8	15 to 20	45 to 80	The main album’s list, cut

Three to four photos per spread is an average, not a rule for every page. Some spreads are one photo across both pages. Some are six small getting-ready frames. A design that averages more than 5 per spread starts to look like a contact sheet, and one that averages fewer than 2 gets expensive, because you run out of pages before you run out of story.

How many photos the couple has to choose from matters too. A gallery of 700 gives them plenty; the how many photos to deliver guide covers what that number should be.

Setting up the favorites request

Send the request with the gallery, not months later. The couple is most engaged in the first 2 weeks after delivery and least engaged after that.

• One list, named “Album”. Not their general hearts, which will include 40 near-duplicates of the same portrait. A named list makes the purpose clear and keeps the album picks separate from the photos they want to post.
• A deadline. 3 weeks is a rule of thumb. Put the date in the email and in your calendar.
• A target number, and the instruction to over-select. “Pick 200 to 300. More is better than fewer; I will cut.” Couples who under-select produce albums with holes.
• What to include. “Pick the moments and people that matter to you. Do not worry about whether a photo is technically the best of a set; I will swap in the sharper frame if there is one.”
• What you will add. “I will add the photos the story needs: the venue, details, the room, the wide shots. You do not need to choose those.”

Both partners can favorite from their own email, and you will see who chose what, which is useful when one partner picked 180 and the other picked 20. In FOCL Galleries, favorites follow the email across devices, and you see them by person or by photo.

From favorites to spreads

1. Export the list. Filenames or a CSV, into your album software or a folder. Sort it chronologically. The album is in day order, and every design decision is easier once the photos are in sequence.
2. Split into chapters. Getting ready, first look, ceremony, family and wedding party, portraits, cocktail hour and details, reception, exit. Not every wedding has every chapter.
3. Give each chapter its spreads. A rule of thumb for a 30-spread album with a first look: getting ready 4, first look and portraits 6, ceremony 6, family and wedding party 3, reception details 2, reception 7, exit 1, cover and title 1. Shift spreads toward what the couple favorited most; a couple with 60 reception hearts and 5 ceremony hearts has told you what their album is about.
4. Fill the gaps. Every chapter needs an establishing frame: the building, the room, the aisle before anyone is in it. Couples rarely favorite those. Add them from your own selects. Add the frame that connects two moments too, such as the walk from the ceremony to the portrait spot.
5. Cut duplicates. Three favorited frames of the same pose become one. The couple hearted all three because they could not decide; deciding is your job.
6. One hero per spread. Each spread has a photo the eye lands on first. The rest support it. A spread with two competing heroes reads as two spreads that got merged.
7. Check the faces. Every parent, every grandparent, every attendant appears at least once. Count. This is the check couples make first and photographers make last.

The conversation with the couple

Say the division of labor out loud, before they start selecting: “You pick the moments, I pick the frames and the layout.” Couples who are told this relax and choose well. Couples who are not told this try to art-direct 30 spreads by email, and the album takes 6 months.

When you present the draft:

• Show it as a flip-through, spread by spread, on a screen or as a proof link, with the photo filenames visible so they can name changes.
• Ask for changes as a single list, from both partners together, not as two separate email threads.
• Allow 2 rounds. Say so in advance: “Two rounds of changes are included; after that, a change fee of X.” Almost everyone finishes in two rounds when they know there are two.
• Parents get an opinion only if the couple gives them one. If a parent is paying for the album, ask the couple how much say that buys before the draft goes out.
• Get the final approval in writing, with the version number. An album is expensive to reprint over a swapped photo that was approved verbally.

Ordering

• Proof once more before you order. Cover text, spelling of names, the date. These are the errors that come back.
• Choose the cover and paper with the couple, not for them, from a small set of options you have actually seen. Three cover choices, two paper choices. More than that and the decision stalls.
• Tell them the lead time. Rule of thumb: 4 to 8 weeks from order to delivery, longer around the holidays. Give a date, not a range, and add margin.
• Parent albums. Offer them at the same time, as a smaller copy of the main album with the family spreads kept and the getting-ready spreads cut. The favorites list already exists, so a parent album is an hour of work, and it is the easiest add-on sale in wedding photography. Price it in line with your print pricing, so the album and the prints say the same thing about what your work costs.
• Deliver before the first anniversary. Put the date on your calendar. Albums that slip past the anniversary tend not to get ordered at all.

When the couple will not choose

Some couples never make the list. After the deadline and one reminder, make the selection yourself from your own top picks, design the album, and present it as a draft. Couples who could not start from a blank gallery can almost always react to a finished draft, and the 2 revision rounds cover the rest. Say in the request email that this is what happens if the deadline passes; it removes the awkwardness later. The delivery checklist is where the reminder dates live.