Quick question about wedding photo delivery

[GCGuy]

So far I've shot a few "practice" weddings for friends and relatives for free and just given them a DVD or CD with the images on it. Coming up in a few months I've got a few paid weddings and curious on your opinions on how to deliver the photos to my customers.

Would it be more professional-like to print a proof book with the images in it and have them pass it around the family for a couple weeks and take down orders, print them and then get the ordered shots back to them to distribute? Or is it just as well to upload them all to a password protected gallery on my website so everyone can look at the proofs as soon as they're uploaded and each individual part of the family can order what they like, when they like and have the photos delivered to their front doorstep much sooner than would be possible the other way.

What's the consensus on this? I'm going to start meeting with the couples getting married in the near future and discussing options for their wedding photos. Thanks!

[form]

There's probably no universal for this. Some probably do proof albums, others may do online proofing and ordering, and others may do both or something else.

[GCGuy]

Would it be reasonable to have a different pricing schedule for each method? Online would be slightly lower cost as I wouldn't have to burn fuel driving around dropping off stuff to get printed or paying shipping to have it delivered. Online proofing and ordering would save about 15% on cost the way I figured it.

[tim]

It would depend on what the couple want, and what they're willing to pay for. I include proof DVDs made with Proshow Gold in my packages, as well as putting the photos online using photographers shopping cart which I have installed on my server. My higher packages have proof books, which have 24 images per 15x10" page. People can have 6x4" proof prints if they want them, but not many do.