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Don’t Let
Your Most Precious Wedding Memories Fade Away
(ARA) -
Whether you’ve been married for a couple of weeks, a few years
or decades, the pictures shot on your wedding day are probably
among your most prized possessions. Every time you flip through
the album, or look at the wedding pictures hanging on the wall,
you’re reminded of how happy you were the day you said “I do.”
Anissa
Burrell-Butler of Westchester, Ill., a suburb of Chicago,
relives her wedding day every time she walks through her living
room. “I consider the day Rodney and I got married (September
30, 2001) the most important day of my life, a day I’ll cherish
for a lifetime,” she says.
Because she
knew the memories would be so precious, Burrell-Butler went all
out on photography. She found a professional photographer
through word of mouth and says he really lived up to his
reputation. “He was kind of expensive, but prompt, courteous and
thorough. He got all the shots I asked for and then some; it was
well worth the money,” she says.
Among the
most memorable images in her album, multiple shots of the bride
and groom partying with their guests, people toasting and lots
of kissing. There are very few formal shots. These days, it
seems more and more brides and grooms are moving away from
traditional pictures, like images of the couple with members of
the wedding party, and with family members all lined up in a
row, towards more candid images that capture the emotions of the
day. “We wanted pictures that would show everyone who was there,
and keep the day alive in our minds and hearts forever,” says
Burrell-Butler.
Shortly after
returning home from their honeymoon, Anissa and Rodney spent
hours flipping back and forth through their proof book smiling.
“Once we decided which images we wanted for the album came the
easy part, picking out the pictures we wanted to get framed,”
she says.
Instead of
the traditional shot of the bride and groom standing next to
each other, Anissa and Rodney chose to frame two kissing
pictures they liked a lot. One shot inside the church, the other
outside the reception hall in front of a lake. “We framed the
images in a shadowbox with two mattes, one rose colored, the
other tan,” she says. “We also framed a shadowbox filled with
keepsakes -- our invitation, reply card, unity candles and
favors, along with photos of our parents, Rodney with all the
girls in the wedding party and me with all the guys.”
When they
took the pieces in to be framed, the shop they went to
recommended they take the extra measure of framing them behind
Museum Glass. “Because wedding pictures can never be replaced,
you need to give them a little extra attention when it comes to
the framing process,” says Joe Maxwell, a custom framing expert
who works for Tru Vue, a
Chicago company that makes preservation quality glass for the
framing industry. “Museum Glass is the best way to go. It has UV
blocking properties, which over time protects the artwork from
sun, dust and moisture in the air, and also offers
anti-reflective technology so you won’t have to worry about
glare.”
Museum Glass
is best for pictures with depth. For flat pieces, Maxwell
recommends Tru Vue’s Conservation Reflection Control glass,
which has more of a matte finish. And he offers these tips to
preserve the images you don’t get framed:
* Only use
albums that are archival quality, meaning acid free.
* Use storage
boxes and envelopes of 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 will serve as a permanent
archive in case anything happens to the originals.
To find the
custom framing shop nearest you that uses Tru Vue Museum Glass
or Conservation Reflection Control, log on to www.tru-vue.com.
www.tru-vue.com
Courtesy
of ARA Content
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