Today my parents celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary! Happy anniversary Mum and Dad…!
40 years is a pretty big deal and a couple of weeks ago whilst trying to think of a suitably significant gift (failed on that one, we’re taking them out for dinner…) I got out their wedding album to look through their photos. When my grandmother sadly passed away a few years ago her copy of my parents wedding album was passed down to me. 
It was actually the first time I’d sat down looked through their album since I started working in the wedding industry. I looked at it with different eyes; in 40 years time it will be wedding photos that we have taken that sons and daughters are looking at…
Wedding photography styles may have changed over the years and we might giggle at the fashions and the hairstyles… (I wonder what people will be saying in 40 years about wedding fashions in 2016?)
But the importance of wedding photos is still the same. The dress will have be worn, the flowers wilted, the cake eaten. The one thing (other than your spouse…) that you have to remind yourself of your wedding day some 40 years later are you photos.
They are there to show friends, family, future children, grandchildren… The family heirloom to be passed down from generation to generation, just as my parents album was passed down to me.
There’s something magical about 40 years later holding a piece of my family’s history in my hands. Of opening the box, unwrapping the protective tissue paper and turning the thick, slightly aged pages of the album whilst seeing familiar, if significantly younger, faces of my parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles stare back at me.
This is a photo of my Mum & Dad with their parents – my grandparents – on their wedding day. Sadly, none of my grandparents are with us anymore. What a great piece of my family history I have in my hands!
You don’t get that with digital images.
With the speed that technology is developing will today’s digital images still even be accessible in 40 years time? Our own wedding photos from just 8 years ago were delivered to us on a DVD. My new iMac doesn’t have a DVD drive…
A print, an album they are tangible products, real things that can be touched and held, not just a group of pixels that may be unreadable in a few years time.
Kept in its box, wrapped in protective paper, and other than being slightly faded, the quality remains as it did 40 years ago. And for that I am thankful, it’s means I can share in a part of my parents wedding day.
This. This is why printing your wedding photos is so important
Mum and Dad, have a very happy 40th Wedding anniversary, lots of love Ally (& AJ) xx
All of our pre-designed wedding collections come with printed product because we believe it is important that our clients have the family heirloom that lasts for generations. To see more about our wedding collections and albums please have a look at our wedding photography page.
©E.C. Tippleston of Northampton, 1976