Why and where to print your wedding photos

Why you need printed wedding photos in your life

You (cleverly!) dedicated hours of research to find the right wedding photographer – and you (wisely!) invested thousands for them to capture your memories just the way you wanted. 

Well, to go to that trouble, and then let your photos languish on a laptop, phone, or USB stick IS AN INJUSTICE. 

(Yep. I meant every one of those capital letters.)

Because printed photos make the intangible tangible. They’re basically magic. (And who doesn’t want more magic in their lives? Apart from those with dogs that can clean up after themselves.)

How about this for wizardry…

Six magical things a printed wedding photo will allow you to do (that a digital one won’t)

1. Enjoy good times every day

Meaningful home decor (puppy-chewed carpet included) adds warmth to our homes and enriches our lives – even on the not-so-good days. So if you turn your wedding memories into physical art – say as a framed favourite on your mantlepiece or a montage on your living room wall – you’ll get a daily dose of nostalgia.

2. Appreciate your photos at their very best

Photos look better when they’re printed. Take it from me … because whenever I see one of my photos as a print for the first time, I think: “Hot jam, my work looks good!” That’s partly because a printed photo has texture and depth, whereas a digital image is flat and lacks dimension. You can probably guess that one. But here’s something you might not know: A printed photo often has a higher resolution than a digital screen, so it’ll look clearer, sharper, and more detailed. Another difference? A digital device displays an image with light from behind, whereas a printed photo reflects ambient light. Which can make colours and contrast look totally different. With prints, you’ll (literally) see your photos in a whole new light.

3. Feel all the feels

Documentary wedding photos help you remember how you felt on your wedding day. And printed photos do a better job of this than digital images. Science says so. Apparently, printed pictures activate the ventral striatum area of the brain seem more real to us, connect better to our memory, and trigger more positive emotions – especially when the subject matter is valuable to us. So printed wedding photos will hit you right in the feels.

4. Connect to the ones you love

You know how we hug, hold hands, or stroke someone’s hair as a way to show our affection? Well, we can connect in the same way when we hold a printed photo of a loved one. Ok, so it’s not exactly the same. But our emotional ties are definitely stronger when touch is involved. Yep, with printed photos, you can (literally and metaphorically) hold your loved ones close. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

We all know we should print our photos, floss our teeth, clean the gutters, service the house alarm, and train our doggos not to give us those puppy-dog eyes. Because it’s good for us.

But *yawn* not right now, later… 

Well, like a laptop with a broken fan, I’ll drone on until you print your wedding photos! 

5. Keep your memories safe

Digital photos are handy … but they’re disposable. How long have you had your latest phone? How about your laptop? How often do you securely back-up and protect your files? How safe is that hard drive? We think we have plenty of time … but technology has an unpredictable shelf life. It’s literally designed by the manufacturers to eventually fail. At any moment, you could lose your wedding photos to a tech mishap. Which is fine for the thousands of ‘stylish spice jar storage’ screenshots you’ve got on your camera roll (just me?) – but not so fine for your heirloom wedding photos. Whereas a good quality print is made to last.

6. Leave a legacy of love

Wedding photos are a family heirloom to gift from generation to generation. They capture history, people, and most of all, love. To leave that for our future family members is an act of love. Because it’s not the photo you give them – it’s the ability to connect with you – even (and especially) when you’re not around. 

Which is why capturing your memories is the first step. And preserving them in printed form is the final piece of your wedding photography puzzle. 

Convinced you should print your wedding photos? Yay! But before you dash off to the photo section at your local supermarket, chemist, or online store …

Why you should skip the DIY and get pro prints instead

Let’s be real: You put a lot of thought into your wedding plans. This isn’t just any event; it’s THE event. And the lengthy list of decisions and details that affect the minutiae of how your wedding looks is endless.

Remember how you…

• Chose your venue because you love the way it looks. Maybe it’s the way the light falls in the orangery, the warmth of the wood paneling, or the view of lush green fields through your ceremony room window 

• Learned to tell the difference between ivory, pearl, bone, lily, chalk, snow, milk, frost, porcelain, cotton, and coconut to choose the exact shade of wedding dress to suit your complexion

• Coordinated your family’s outfit colours to complement each other, without being matchy-matchy, so they’d all look good together in your group photos

• Asked your makeup artist to mix a bespoke foundation and source a specific shade of blush to match your skin tone

• Commissioned a set of matching groomsmen ties, flower girl sashes, dinner napkins, and dog leads so they’d all be the exact same shade of green

Well, it was all so worth it and everything looked amazing.

And now it’s over, you’re glad you invested in a professional photographer who could capture all these finer details with unbelievable clarity, and carefully edit your photos by hand to reflect what you saw on the day.

So naturally, you want to make sure your printed photos are just as beautiful as the digitals, right?

Well, spoiler alert: If you go to a supermarket, chemist, local camera store, or any other high street or online retailer, your photos won’t look the way they should. 

Let’s go deeper…

Why you might want to DIY your wedding prints

• Price 

Nope, that list isn’t accidentally cut short. The only thing going for the DIY option is that it’s cheap. 

Supermarkets, high street stores, and online printing companies are all about low-cost prints. You can buy a whole lot of prints for the price of a latte – which is great for your wallet and your caffeine addiction.

But not so great if you want to see how beautiful your wedding actually was. Because to get that cheap price? You compromise on the quality. The standard of everything will be low: Ink, paper, and process. 

But it’s not their fault. They simply don’t have the equipment, technical knowledge, or invested interest to reproduce what your photographer (and you) intended – which is photos with accurate colours, carefully balanced contrast, and crystal-clear clarity. 

And that’s okay for date night selfies, holiday snaps, or plant portraits (Are they a thing? If not, we should make them a thing). 

So whilst the supermarket might be okay for a ready-roasted chicken that’ll be long forgotten by tomorrow, it’s not okay for photo prints you want to last a lifetime. 

The short and (not so) sweet of it? If you take the DIY route, your:

• Perfect porcelain dress might turn greige
• Beautiful blush could make you look less ‘radiant’ and more ‘I’ve just spotted my ex’
• Lush green fields may make you wonder if someone developed a glow-in-the-dark strain of grass

… And you’ll probably end up ordering professional prints anyway. 

Meanwhile, if you go pro …

Why you might want to get professionally printed wedding photos 

Professional prints will: 

• Show how beautiful your wedding was, in all its glory. Your photographer’s work will be reproduced exactly the way you both intended

• Last for generations. Professional prints will be produced with archive-quality ink and paper that’s much less prone to fade, crack, or discolour.

• Be like looking at your photos for the first time all over again. You’ll be blown away by how different they look to digital photos when you see them printed with a crisp and clear finish.

In other words, they’ll look nothing like the flimsy-fingerprinty-wishy-washy-too-dark-too-light-too-pink-too-blue poor excuse of a print you’d get from the place that sells ready-roasted chickens. (No offence to the chicken, but it won’t be on your wall for the next fifty years.)

Of course, it will be more expensive. (Even at cost price, pro prints are pricier than the ones you’ll get on the high street or online.) But you’re guaranteed incredible quality.

Where to get wedding photos printed professionally 

Start with your wedding photographer. Seeing our work printed badly makes us sad. So we’ll be more than happy to help you get a great result. Which is why most of us offer a print service that allows you to tap into our trade suppliers to access heirloom-worthy prints. 

If you’re an SVP couple (hi!), you can order your professional prints directly through me. Hurrah! This means you can:

• Access the professional print lab I use myself and unlock a service that’s only available to pro photographers
• Order quickly and easily via your web gallery shop
• Get your hands on your prints quickly. Your order will go directly from your fingertips to my supplier and be delivered directly to you. And if you order before midday, you’ll receive them the very next (working) day
• Relax knowing your wedding photos will be presented in their highest quality (and most beautiful!) form with every pixel accurately preserved. 

Now THAT IS JUSTICE.

Want something even more magical than prints?

Showcase your special day in storybook form with a bespoke wedding album so you can relive your day page by magical page.