Wedding photo albums – keeping memories alive

Wedding photo albums – how do they keep memories alive?  Simple really.

Imagine finding a trunk up in the attic one day.  You open it up and there, amongst the bric a brac, is a photo album containing pictures of your early childhood.  What would you do?  You’d open it wouldn’t you?  You’d turn the pages, look at yourself as a toddler, look at your parents as young adults, pore over where you were and what you were doing.  And long dormant memories would be fired up.  You’d start to remember places, events, names and faces that you hadn’t thought about for years.  Imagine the warm feeling that would flood over you as you turned the pages.

Now imagine finding that book, years after the event, but containing photos of one of the most momentous occasions of your life – your wedding day.  Even better, imagine showing your wedding photo album to your kids.  Can you imagine the looks on their faces as they see you, years younger, having the time of your life, on one of the best days of your life?  Imagine the warm feeling THAT would bring.

That, in a nutshell, is why wedding photo albums are important.  They capture a moment in time, and preserve it for future generations to share.  But they do so much more.  Not only do they record that you and your partner married on a certain day in a particular location, but the amazing things that took place; the strength of the  emotions that were unleashed; how fabulous you looked, and how happy you were.  There’ll be photos of departed relatives, of friends much younger than nowadays.  All of this contained in a few pages.  All those memories and experiences sitting there, waiting to be released and remembered.  And all it takes is to turn a few pages.

Amazing.

(Many thanks to Julia and John, whose wedding at Capesthorne Hall last spring was so expertly captured by Jonny Draper, and who asked me to design their wedding album for them.  Some of the spreads that inspired this post are shown below).