You hear people say all the time that your wedding day will be the most important day in your life. So it only makes sense that you'll want the memories captured on film that day to last forever.
Not just so you can enjoy them, but so your children, and their children's children can, too. Family tradition is important to a lot of us, but very few people still have copies of their grandparents' wedding pictures around.
Why is that?
"Because they didn't do a very good job preserving them. They simply displayed the photos in a frame on the coffee table or stuck them to pages of a self-adhesive album only to discover years later that their pictures were irreversibly damaged," said Danata Donnerson of Tru-Vue, which specializes in preservation-quality glass for the framing industry.
Years of exposure to the afternoon sun, dust and moisture in the air can leave framed photos brittle and yellow. The same amount of time spent attached to the pages of an acid-based self-adhesive album can do the same thing.
"I've heard a lot of horror stories about wedding photos ruined because they were not properly stored," said Dana Powell, editor-in-chief of Brides Noir magazine. "One woman I know lost all of her photos when the box they were stored in got wet in a flooded basement. I also know a lot of people who've had them turn yellow in albums."
"Your most precious photographic memories should be given the same treatment and protection that a piece of fine artwork receives," Donnerson added.
In other words, they should be framed, and not just put behind regular glass, but preservation quality glass.
"It may cost a little more but it's worth it," Powell said. "You won't want your treasured memories to fade."
Since it's not practical to get all of your wedding photos framed, a lot of people are using their outtakes and extra portraits to create scrapbook pages, then getting those framed. People who don't have the time to do that simply put them in albums; but remember, they too need to be adequately preserved.
Only use albums that are archival quality, meaning acid-free.
Storage boxes and envelopes should also be archival quality.
Only mount photos to acid-free pages using tape and photo corners that are also acid- free.
Do not store photos in high-temperature or high-humidity areas such as attics and basements.
Have your pictures scanned and put on a CD, which can serve as a permanent archive in case anything happens to the originals.
