You just got your wedding photo gallery.. And now you’re wondering, how do you store your wedding photos safely?

 Your wedding photos are more than just pictures; they’re precious memories capturing one of the most significant days of your life. Preserving them properly ensures that you can cherish these moments for years to come. 

Being a wedding photographer is about more than just taking pictures. My clients also rely on me to keep their photos safe and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. I have multiple steps to ensure my clients’ photos are safe and I want you to know how to do it too.

Here are some of our best tips to store your wedding photos for safe keeping, we recommend utilizing at least 2 of these options if not more!

How to Store Your Wedding Photos Digitally

These days it couldn’t be easier to store your wedding photos digitally. High-resolution images can be saved on multiple platforms to ensure they’re kept safe and easy to access:

• External Hard Drives: Invest in a high-quality external hard drive with ample storage space. These drives are reliable and provide a physical backup that’s separate from your computer.
• Cloud Storage: Utilize cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud. These platforms offer accessibility from anywhere and protect your photos from hardware failures.
• Optical Media: Although this is a lot less common these days, it’s still an option! Burning (am I dating myself by using that word?!) photos to DVDs or Blu-ray discs can serve as an additional backup that one could consider classy and give that great 90’s aesthetic.

How to Store Your Wedding Photos Physically

While storing your wedding photos digitally is highly recommended, I would also advise to have physical prints of your photos as well. When opting for printed photos, albums, and physical media, proper storage is key to maintaining their quality and durability.

• Acid-Free Albums and Sleeves: If you’re someone who likes the old-school album look be sure to place your prints in acid-free photo albums or sleeves. Acid-free materials prevent deterioration and yellowing over time and is one of the best ways to store printed pictures.

Amazon has some great acid-free photo albums here 

• Shutterfly or Mixbooks: Shutterfly and Mixbooks are 2 great online websites where you can download your photos and create your own photo album. Not only do they both make it easy to upload and design, but they usually have some great discounts as well.

Organizing and Labeling Your Wedding Photos

When thinking about how to store your wedding photos, keep in mind that organization can go a long way. Here are some of your best tips when storing your photos digitally and physically.

• Digital Organization: Create folders and subfolders by event or category to make finding specific photos from your wedding easier. Having each one stored in a specific folder will only make it easier to find it later.
• Physical Organization: Label your photo album and/or box with clear and easy to see labels. This helps when looking for your album/box when it may be stored in the midst of other albums and boxes.

We would highly recommend having physical and digital copies of your photos saved. God forbid, if anything were to happen to your physical album, then you would have the digital photos as back up. 

And likewise with your digital photos. Whether you were to lose your hard drive or your cloud loses the photos, you will then have the physical copies to scan and redownload. 

You don’t need to overcomplicate how to store your wedding photos, but having multiple copies of the best day of your life is never a bad idea.