Sample coffee table albums- question

Hi all,

When you put together a sample album to show prospective clients, do you mix it up with matierial from multiple weddings? Do you divide it into section for each wedding, or share spreads for several couples? I'm putting together one now, and I think I need more than one wedding to cover the possibilities.

Thanks,
Mickey

I'm not a wedding photographer, but was recently planning a wedding and met with lots of them. If it helps, I think that most brides want to see a "full" album from one wedding as well as a portfolio with a greater range. Any photographer that didn't show me a full album from one wedding, I asked to see one, or at least to see pics on file. Otherwise, brides (and I suppose grooms) wonder if you have simply compiled your 200 lucky shots from five years of photography. We want to know that we will get lots of good shots, particularly if your fees are high. That's just my 0.02.

We have a few copies of albums we've made for other brides to show as samples (had an exact duplicate printed). We have custom layouts. They can look at the size books with different options and different layouts. Since CTB have a flow, we like to have real albums from real brides, otherwise it breaks up the feel of the day.

I am just starting out so i dont have a lot of weddings to draw images from, but one of my coffee table books has images from 4 weddings , and is sort of divided into sections as it goes along.. brides at home, followed by ceremony etc etc.. My next coffee table book is on order and features a 'trash the dress' session of just one couple. It is ony a 20 page album as the session was cut short, but i've included more artwork ect in that one as a different example.
Nic

I have sample albums of complete weddings. That way, you can show your bride and groom that you are capable of photographing an entire wedding, not just your very best of each. It's also nice to have an album of an outdoor and an indoor wedding. And to have available the albums you plan to offer. For instance, if you offer a standard, tradional album, you should have that available as well as a coffe-table style album if that is offered. For your best samples of different weddings, it's nice to have them complied in a portfolio or framed & matted images.

Complete weddings. Do a "best of" album or slide show as well if you like.

The first bit of advice the bride and groom will read on websites or in magazines etc for choosing a photographer will be to look at one or two complete weddings he has shot and not just his best of book, so getting a complete wedding book to show clients has got to be a priority.

We started off last year with one complete wedding we had shot printed in a very cost effective book format and then we also had a ring bound protfolio book with a selection of shots we had taken a various friends weddings that was deisgned to show some variety of weddings and doing it this way worked. Couples want to see what they will end up with at the end of the day.

I do a best of...many...

But I see banbert's idea also..and will proably have copies made of the next few weddings to show people..

Plus one is more scrapbooky and the other will be more elegant.

so they can see the wide range of what we can do also..

Thanks all, I really appreciate your comments. I have one full wedding, and will make an album of that, but I much prefer the work I last did as an assistant. Unfortunately, the bridal party and the formals were not my domain, though I was in on every other setting. I think I'll do all I have of that one, but on the better sample book. It's a bit more classy looking. I'll do the full wedding in a mid range book.

Thanks!
-Mickey