Wedding File Storage

So the ideal for us is that we get the photos taken on the day of the wedding, come home back them up on a server, a storage hard drive and the editing computer, than back them up off site soon after. Once finished we keep the finished product on the storage hard drive and the off site location.

Which is manageable.

But we've only been doing this a year, and eventually we will have quite a large number of hard drives filled with photos.

So how long is it normal to store a couples photos for, and if we store them for say 10 or 20 years, can we charge extra for long term storage.

I tell my clients that I store the files for 5 years. But I really intend on keeping them much longer.
Yes, it tends to be a lot of storage.

I tell them that I hope to store them indefinitely, but as I point out, there is no contractual commitment to this.

I only keep RAW's until after the album is done. After that, for archival purposes, I save only JPGS which I do using DVD's and external HD's. Going this route, and given my volume as a part-timer, large external drives hold quite a few weddings.

Right now I'm still holding onto the raws, but I'm edging towards deleting those after a year or so and just keeping the JPEGs of all the edited photos. It's hard to let go though.

Like you guys I want to hold onto them indefinitely and I'd like to be able to promise the couple that; I hate hearing stories of people who have lost them to fire, or other causes. But maintaining files for that long takes time and space. I was thinking of making a package add on, storage for x yrs for x amount of dollars. But wasn't sure if that was cheesy/impractical.

I want to hold on to RAW's just long enough to be sure I don't need to go back to the orginal for some crazy reason owing to what they order. For instance, everything I show is cropped 2x3, so if the client wants an 8x10, I may need to go back to the original to give them one that's cropped nicely. I've yet to have an instance where I needed to go back to an original for any other reason. And once they've received their album, future orders fall very close to zero.

I've had that happen before, and I know some of our clients wait forever to print right now. All the money goes to the wedding and so the prints wait a year or two until they can afford to order some nice ones.

I tell people I guarantee to keep the files until they get their CD, but i'll make my best effort after that.

I keep images on my PC, on a disk in a drawer, and on a disk offsite. I keep DNG and jpeg. Right now I have 3TB of offsite storage which cost about $200 and has plenty of space free.

I burn everything to DVD (Raw and edited Jpeg) and keep them in binders. All the edited Jpegs are loaded into my gallery and kept indefinitely (or until I change gallery companies). I will keep the offline DVDs for at least 5 years. I have two TB's on my IMAC for storage until I stamp out customer DVDs and my backup DVDs.

Steve