According to The Tampa Tribune, that hefty leather-bound, gold-edged wedding photo album is getting some new competition, the iPad.
In addition to offering a traditional album, a growing number of wedding photographers are starting to sell Apple iPad computer tablets, pre-loaded with hundreds of photos and video of the couple’s engagement, wedding and reception — some with lavish digital layouts and multi-media presentations.
And the couples are buying them, fast, partly because guys love them.
“If I’m presenting photo packages to a bride and groom, I can tell you when the guy sees that iPad, he sits up, and gets excited for the first time in the whole wedding-planning process,” said Stephen Yanni, a photographer who does weddings across Florida. Since starting to offer iPad albums just two months ago, about half his clients are buying them.
“You may not lug out that 40-page, 30-pound album, except to force the relatives to flip through it on the couch,” Yanni said, “but brides will carry around that iPad wherever they go, and show it to every single person she meets.”
Photographers like Yanni see that as a major marketing opportunity and represent a rapid shift in wedding photography, catering to a thoroughly digital generation of couples who want their pictures on digital photo frames, as their computer wallpaper, on videogame consoles, on cell phone screens — and most importantly, on the bride’s Facebook page.
Photo by Yanman Photography.