What Are the Best Storage Ideas for Wedding Photos?

Wondering what are the best storage ideas for wedding photos?

Hello, you have invested a lot of money and endless hours into finding and hiring your dream wedding photographer. Now that your wedding is over and your photographer has delivered your gorgeous photos to you. How will you store your wedding photos so that you will have them forever?

Your wedding photographs are probably the most important thing that you will have left from your wedding day. All the precious moments of your wedding day are captured and frozen in time so that you can relive those memories forever. But keeping your digital photo files safe may not be as easy as it looks, and losing your wedding day photos could be your worst nightmare.

Don’t worry! I am Antonio, one of Miami’s best wedding photographers. And today is your lucky day. Because I’m going to give you some tips to help you plan for storing your wedding photos so that you don’t have to worry about losing them.

So here we go! Are you ready? Let’s do this.

Tip #1 – Make a Plan for Your Wedding Photo Storage on Multiple Devices

Look, this may sound easier said than done. But it is something that you just have to do. Before your photographer delivers your photos, you should figure out some storage ideas for your wedding photos. I recommend that you consider using a minimum of 3 storage devices. One of these devices could be your computer. Another could be an external hard drive, and the third could be a cloud storage service such as Apple iCloud, Google Drive, or Dropbox.

There are gazillion cloud services and electronic storage devices out there. So, you will need to do your homework. In a little bit, I will give you some of my recommendations. For now, here is how this works:

1. Let’s say your photos were delivered to you via an online photo gallery, and you have the option to download all of the photos to your computer. Your computer will become your first storage device.
2. Next, you will need to back up the photos from your computer to an external hard drive. Consider backing up to multiple external hard drives for extra peace of mind.
3. Your third storage option should be a cloud base service like the ones mentioned above. Storing your wedding photos on multiple devices will minimize the chances of you losing all your photos.

Tip #2 – Store a Backup of Your Wedding Photos Away from Your Home

Store a backup of your wedding photos away from your home. The ideal place would be a bank or credit union safety deposit box. This is important in the event your home is destroyed by a flood or fire. If your computer is destroyed, you will still have the backup in the safety deposit box and your cloud backup.

Tip #3 – Plan on Backing Up Your Backup To Newer Hard Drives Every 2 – 3 Years

It is not enough for you to backup your precious wedding photos to an external hard drive and forget about it. Technology is constantly changing, and digital formats and hardware will become obsolete from time to time. The last thing you want is to have your photos on a hard drive that you can’t access because it is outdated.

Don’t even consider using compact discs. The compact disc has been dying a slow, painful death for some time now. Many car manufacturers stop including a disc reader in their vehicles, and Apple computers ditch the disc readers a while back. So, the compact disc is not a good storage idea for wedding photos!

Closely following compact discs are the thumb drives. As cloud storage becomes more efficient and affordable, there won’t be any need for thumb drives. The bottom line is to plan ahead and stay updated. Having multiple backups is an excellent storage idea for your wedding photos. Do this, and you will minimize losing your photos to outdated devices.

Tip #4 – Make Prints From Your Digital Photo Files

There can be nothing more comforting than having something tangible from your wedding to reminisce over. Quality photo prints are great storage ideas for wedding photos. Print those treasured moments of your wedding day and relive your wedding day forever. Now here is the thing with photo prints.

There are lots of places that will print your digital photo files. But for quality, you will want to use a professional photo print lab. A professional print lab will ensure that your photos are printed in the correct color on quality archival paper. Photos that are printed professionally on quality paper will last a very long time.

Ask your photographer for a recommendation for printing your photos. Most wedding photographers work closely with professional print labs. They can offer beautiful heirloom albums, wall prints for your home, and much more.

Tip #5 – Do Your Homework

Before you invest in hard drives and cloud storage, do your homework. I hate to tell you this, but there is a lot of crap on the market. You can quickly become a victim to some poor-quality storage equipment and lose all your photos. I can’t even tell you the number of times I have external drives failed on me. I even had cloud storage that failed on me too. So here is my advice! Ask your photographer for recommendations.

Bonus Tip – Here are Some of My Favorite Photo Storage Devices and Services

Starting with cloud storage: Not so long ago, storing your photos in the cloud was very limited and expensive. Today, prices have decreased considerably, and there are many service providers to choose from.

My favorite cloud photo storage apps are Google Drive & Dropbox. I use both of these extensively for storing all sorts of files. What I like about these two applications is that they sync with your computer and allow backup of your files to their cloud storage. This gives you the convenience of having access to your photos from any internet-connected computer or device.

The icing on the cake is that both of these apps offer a small amount of storage for free, with the option to pay for larger storage space. For about $10/MTh, you can get 1-2TB of storage, which would be way more than what you would need for storing your wedding photos.

Online Wedding Photo Storage

External Hard Drives: These are the way to go when looking for an alternative to your desktop for photo storage. Over the years, these dandy pieces of data storage devices have increased significantly in storage size while decreasing equally in cost. Today, you can pick up an external hard drive for about $80 – $150.

My favorite external hard drives are the LaCie Rugged Portables and the Seagates Portables. I have been using multiple versions of these drives for many years, and I can tell you they are very reliable. Of all the hard drives I have failed and become a paperweight, I have yet to have any problems with my LaCies or Seagates – knock on wood (lol).

To sum it all up, don’t store your precious wedding photos only on your computer. Have a couple of backups. Ideally, you want to store your wedding photos on three separate devices in different locations. You can’t just have storage ideas for wedding photos. You must take action to protect your precious wedding photo files or risk losing all of them.

Have questions? Let’s connect here.

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