The Top 5 Reasons on Why Prints Matter

You made it! Your wedding day is now over and you and your spouse are enjoying your honeymoon. All that stressful planning is a thing of the past and your wedding day was quite a day to remember. A few weeks later you receive your digital photographs. You are overjoyed with every single one of the images and share them all on social media for your friends and family to see! So, in this digital age, you may think to yourself, “what’s the point in having printed artwork in my home?”

If you’re not sure at the moment, I hope you’ll have a change in perspective after reading this blog post. Here are my top 5 reasons on why prints matter.

1. Digital Can Be a Headache

To continue my story above, you’ve shared all the photographs online and your friends and family are in love with your photos, as well. But now what? You forget about your digital photographs and life carries on as normal. Your images are hidden away on your hard-drive, online gallery, or even USB stick now tucked away in your drawer.

You may think your digital images will be there forever, but think again. Digital storage devices can get outdated fast, can corrupt unexpectedly, and can be costly to recover, if at all! First it was the floppy disk – extinct. Then it was the CD – pretty much extinct (certain computers don’t even accept CDs anymore). Then USB sticks – certain computers don’t accept these too! Technology is evolving so fast, so it’s hard to rely on these storage devices to view your images 5-10 years down the line.

You may also be thinking about cloud storage solutions. While this may seem like a very logical solution, storage limit and pricing changes may occur, and even worse, the company possibly going defunct.

As a photographer, we only save photographs for a limited time, so there’s no guarantee we can even recover your images for you in the future.

Viewing your photos digitally can be a pain, as well. You have to remember the moment first, then you have to dig around for that image. Now you have to scroll through your camera roll to find that image… you’ll likely get lost while scrolling through all your photos. I won’t lie to you and say I haven’t experienced this and I’m sure we all have drowned in the sea of our photos!

If you had a family party, would you pull up your Facebook to scroll through all 800 wedding photos? I know I don’t pull up my very own wedding photographs on my computer every day, but I’m glad to see them on my wall each day!

To summarize, having only digital photographs can be a big headache.

2. It’s a Lifelong Investment

When you purchase printed artwork for your home, you are making an investment. You believe in it and you value it more. You’ve invested so much in your wedding and the last thing you want is to forget about or lose your photographs. Your wedding photographs deserve to be created into something of greater value, and this value increases with time. You are committing to ensure your memories will last as heirloom for years and years to come.

You are making an investment to preserve your memories. They are not meant to be scrolled on your social media feed, but are meant to last through real, tangible printed artwork. The relationship between physical touch versus an image on a digital screen is so different. The power of touch is indescribable, as some individuals express love and affection through touch, so having tangible photographs makes sense. Humans are more connected to physical items rather than something you can’t touch.

3. To Tell Stories

One of the main reasons of why prints matter is to tell stories. By having printed artwork easily visible around the home, this sparks conversations and stories to be told. Your guests may even retell some of their favourite stories that you didn’t even know about.

When printed artwork is easily visible around the home, this instantly brings back the emotions and memories. Recall what I mentioned about digital images, where you have to think about the memory first, then search for the photo? With printed artwork, it’s the other way around. This is how stories are meant to be shared.

Speaking of how your wedding day should be told: your wedding day is a story. How are stories normally told? Through a book – your wedding album. From the getting-ready stage, the first look, first kiss, and to partying the night away, your wedding album allows you to relive and retell your story, not just chronologically, but emotionally. You just can’t relive this experience the same way through digital files.

Your story is worth being told and preserved, curated for the now but with the future in mind. You are creating stories for your family that may not even be born yet, which also ties in to prints being a lifelong investment.

4. There’s a Reason Your Parents Have Prints

Chances are your parents have one form or another of past memories displayed around the house. This goes to show that your parents wanted to showcase the moments and people they care about most. In fact, there have been studies performed in the past that concluded printed portraits displayed around the house can boost a child’s self-esteem. The studies mention that by having family portraits, it shows that your children are valued, loved, cared for, and an important part of the family unit. These are images seen every day and honours the memories that were previously experienced. So, if you plan to expand your family in the future, this is something to be considered – after all, it’s science! This is a gateway to connect your past experiences with future generations.

5. To Furnish Your Home

Lastly, simply to just decorate your home! Why not spruce up your place with beautiful photographs from your wedding, showcasing the highlights of the day. Who doesn’t like to make their place more appealing? Whether it is wall art including framed prints and canvases, or even an album sitting on the living room coffee table, a beautiful addition to the home is always a plus. This is a perfect excuse to fill in those empty spaces you’ve been meaning to furnish!

I hope this blog post was able to change your perspective on why prints matter. Your printed artwork contains moments in life that bring you joy, a reminder of that moment, and interrupts your day-to-day to bring you back to what really matters. My goal as a wedding photographer is to document these memories for you to relive in the future. Wedding photographers know how best to retell your story in your wedding album, for example, hand-selecting the very best images that tell your story. Believe me when I say you’ll be glad you printed your memories. I can almost guarantee you that no one has ever regretted having their most cherished memories printed.

Of course, the best way to print your memories is through a professional lab, but this will be another topic of discussion for a future blog post. I know it can be a bit overwhelming when it comes to all the options available for types of artwork including an album, canvas, framed wall art, or table top frame, for example. With Brian Ly Photography, only the best printed product solutions are offered to make this part of the process seamless.

One of the most important vendors is your photographer that you select for your wedding. You can learn more about my approach towards your wedding day here!