5 Tips to Store Your Wedding Photos Safely

You've lived the fairytale wedding you've planned for so long. The moments are still quite fresh in your mind: the first look, the trembling of the voice as you both said I do, everyone around you cheering, all the hugs and kind words of your loved one, the energy on the dance floor as you hoped the night will never end.

As they slowly start to fade away, and the reality of everyday life settles in - an email notification pops up on your screen: Your wedding gallery is now ready. You open the link and with each image, it all starts to come back: the tears, the laughter, the joy and all those tiny moments that were unfolding around you as you floated through the day without noticing, wrapped in the sweet fog of love.

That's the power of images. Your gallery is more than a mix of pixels thrown together. It's the key that unlocks a trip down memory lane every time you open that door. And like everything precious, your gallery also needs looking after. The one key that's capable of unlocking an abundance of emotions. The one key that take you back to one of the best days of your life. You wouldn't want to lose that, would you?

Well, we're here to teach you how to become the locksmith of your memories, so you can be sure you are never left without your most precious key.

5 ways to securely store your photos

You've got the key - what should you do next?

Once your photographer has delivered your wedding gallery, whether that's on an online platform or through an USB, it's up to you to store your photos safely. Your online gallery might have an expiration date. Your USB surely has a certain life-span, even though you don't know it from the beginning.

As someone who has plugged in a hard drive in their computer in the past, only to realize there is no data left on it, I can assure you there's no words to describe the feeling.  A mix of sadness, disappointment and frustration hit me like a snowball in the face. At that point, I realized I had lost precious images that I would never get back.

If only I had taken the time to create a back-up for these…

Nowadays it's easier and more affordable to do that, so you've got no excuse. Let's dive into the different options you can use to back up your wedding photos so you never have to fear about losing them:

1.Print and store them in albums

Yes, the world has gone digital, but printed images still have their charm. There's no better feeling than sitting in front of the chimney, on Christmas night, and scrolling through your photo albums with the whole family. We offer unlimited printing rights with our packages so you can create as many copies as you like. Your gifts are sorted for the whole family this year!

2. Cloud solutions

As fancy as these might sound for non-techy people, cloud solutions are simply services provided by other companies through the internet. In this case, we refer to storage space. You pay a small fee in order to store your beloved image on a platform where you can access them from multiple devices that are connected to the internet. You simply create an account, choose a plan, upload the images and they should be available as long as you pay for your plan and choose a reliable provider that won't go bust. Some popular names include: Google Drive, ICloud, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive or Amazon Photos. Most of these providers will have a free plan with limited storage.

3. External Hard Drives

These are similar to USBs, except they will have larger storing capacities and typically longer lives. They connect to your device and you can copy all your photos across. That being said, External Hard Drives do no live forever either, they are sensitive to storing conditions and should be handled gently. Best practice is to have at least two of them, on which you keep copies of the same images. If one of them fails, you can still rely on the copy. Some popular brands include: Seagate, Western Digital, SanDisk, Samsung, LaCie or Toshiba. However, not all Hard Drives from a brand are made equal so we suggest you do a little bit of research before making a purchase. It's considered best practice to plan reviewing the data on them at least once a year and you could also store one copy away from your home to reduce the risks of losing those precious memories.

4. Storing on multiple devices

You can also use the internal memory of your personal devices to create several copies of the images. Make sure you have them saved on multiple options such as phones, laptops or tablets. Bonus points if any of these solutions are set to constantly back-up your data in a cloud solution that you can later access if the device is lost or stolen.

5. Share them on social media

When I first signed up for a Facebook account at 15 years old, I never imagined the photos I would post would still exist almost 15 years later (wow, how the time flies). Nonetheless, Facebook never fails to remind me how cringe I was in my teenage years. But every time it pulls out a memory from the darkest corners of my profile, I cannot help but smile. At this point, it's easy to assume some of these social media platform will continue to be a part of our lives for the following years and the images and posts we feed into them will still be accessible in the near future. You probably would not want to flood your friends' feeds with your full wedding gallery and should definitely not rely on this as your only storing solution, but it's a nice extra thing to have. Especially a few years down the road when you randomly open your phone to a new notification: you have a memory from this day 10 years ago.

But knowledge without practice is useless. So off you go now, before the dust sets on your USB box, it's high time to become a locksmith and make that copy! Secure your special memories by using at least 2 of the options mentioned above so you can open the door and recall all the emotions even on your golden wedding anniversary.