Do you get b&g's approval on the wedding book design before printing?

[kenwood33]

After designing the wedding book, do you send the digital copy to the b&g to get their approval first before printing out the hard copy? If not, how would you handle the situation where the b&g do not like what they see? Refund? Try again?

[tim]

My album design process is:
- Choose images, design album.
- B&G come over, see my predesign, go away with a pdf or web copy
- They decide what they want, come back to my office, we make changes.
- Another proof is done, they can do changes again if the want to. The change/preview cycle continues until they're happy.
- Once they're happy I send out a small printed proof with an album design agreement. They have to initial each print and sign the contract, and return payment.

This may be more work that some people do, but I want my customers to have an album they're happy with. I always predesign albums and I ignore the size of the album they've ordered, and people often end up buying larger albums than is in their package. The key to this is telling people when they first meet you that 20 pages is a small album, the average is 30-35 pages, and the price per page is $x. I remind them of this before their wedding in a letter (with other things), and when I meet them before their wedding, so they're not surprised and offended and think i'm just trying to upsell them. The sample albums I show are quite large, so people know what to expect. Some people end up with the 20 pages in their package, some end up with triple that. All of my customers end up with the album they want though :)

[evelasco]

I only allow two changes...unless it's my error. But yes, they should see a proof in advance.

[NC_Photo]

Yes.

We don't them them pick their initial pictures, we just design the album. Then they get to review it and make a couple changes as needed.

[sapearl]

The select their final picks from the proofs, my lab prints them, and then I assemble them in the bound album. At that point it's cast in stone, done, and they come and pick it up.