Groom apathy? Show him the iPad photo album

That hefty leather-bound, gold-edged wedding photo album is getting some new competition, the iPad.

In addition to offering a traditional album, a growing number of wedding photographers are starting to sell Apple iPad computer tablets, pre-loaded with hundreds of photos and video of the couple's engagement, wedding and reception - some with lavish digital layouts and multi-media presentations.

And the couples are buying them, fast, partly because guys love them.

"If I'm presenting photo packages to a bride and groom, I can tell you when the guy sees that iPad, he sits up, and gets excited for the first time in the whole wedding-planning process," said Stephen Yanni, a photographer who does weddings across Florida. Since starting to offer iPad albums just two months ago, about half his clients are buying them.

"You may not lug out that 40-page, 30-pound album, except to force the relatives to flip through it on the couch," Yanni said, "but brides will carry around that iPad wherever they go, and show it to every single person she meets."

Photographers like Yanni see that as a major marketing opportunity and represent a rapid shift in wedding photography, catering to a thoroughly digital generation of couples who want their pictures on digital photo frames, as their computer wallpaper, on videogame consoles, on cell phone screens - and most importantly, on the bride's Facebook page.

This dynamic is upending the traditional photography model for weddings, and couples.

Typically, photographers charge for their time, supplies, albums and reprints. Photographers have long defended their copyrights to pictures - successfully - because the photographs existed only in print. Now, Yanni and other wedding shooters are offering digital packages of any format the bride wishes.

New business models are still in flux, as the iPad only came out this year. And photographers offer a range of packages, mostly offering the iPad as either a replacement or an addition to a paper album.

On top of the cost to shoot the wedding itself,
one package may include a traditional paper photo album for $1,500, then a collection of "digital negatives" given to the couple for $800, which includes an iPad loaded with photos, plus the service of a digital resizing and color correction so images display perfectly on a phone, digital photo frame and Facebook.

On their own, iPads can cost between $499 to $830 from Apple, depending on features.

That's an easy sell to couples, Yanni and other photographers say, because the iPad displays and shares photos so well - and couples can hardly turn them down once they hold the pad in their hands.

"They're just so smooth and vibrant with photos - you can zoom in and pan around," Yanni said. "How do you zoom in on a bound wedding album? Hold it closer to your nose?"

These digital doodads also serve another purpose - keeping a groom interested.

By the time guys reach the photographer, Yanni said they've already endured meetings and debates over china patterns, brides-maid colors, groomsmen gifts, limo bookings, cake flavor choices and tickets for the honeymoon.

"He just thought it was awesome," said Jessica Vieira, speaking of how her fiancé Christopher Steele reacted upon seeing example wedding shots on a digital display. They plan on having all their shots put on their own personal iPads when they get married in June next year, and they've already had their engagement photos resized so they display well on Facebook and cell phones.

Their total photography bill topped more than $3,000, "so I guess this will add an extra $500," Vieira said, "but that's what we want - that's how we can share everything."

Historians of photography say all this is a natural next step.

Wedding albums of some form have existed since the 1890s, said Shannon Perich, a photography curator for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. But the big, hardbound version with gilt edges only came into fashion in the 1940s, just as more middle-income couples could afford ceremonies with bridesmaids, groomsmen, and 100 or more guests.

Then came instant Polaroid shots, film slideshows, copies of wedding programs and engagement announcements and bigger and bigger printed albums to collect it all.

"The switch to digital is just providing people so many more options," what to do with all that material, Perich said. "And the photographers are responding to them."

In that vein, an engraved wedding invitation may still be expected, but for the modern bride, the most urgent priority after saying "Yes," is to post the photo of the ring on her Facebook page.

And display technology has improved far enough to make even the best professional photographs present well, said Alison Nordstrom, curator at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, N.Y. home of Eastman Kodak Co.

She's not trying to personally advocate for any one computer tablet, but "I really think they are just about the best way imaginable to look at photographs," which is saying something, she notes, since her museum honors George Eastman, the inventor of modern consumer photography on film.

With digital pads, the screens provide a luminosity that makes images glow much more than printed versions. "And when you think about a wedding album, they're generally pink and silver," Nordstrom said, "and then you have this manly piece of high tech machinery."

In just the last few months, more photographers are offering iPad albums: Bobby Brown Photography in the Los Angeles area, the Doc Weddings photojournalism company in Canada, Hardy Klahold photography in Colorado, GrantDeb Photographers in Virginia, plus Brad's Creative Images Photography in Port St. Lucie, and Marcio Cavalcanti Photography in the Miami area.

St. Petersburg photographer Carrie Pratt, who owns Studio Blu Images, said she's exploring the idea, but wants the customer to ultimately decide.

"While younger generations understand technology, we, as wedding photographers, have to remember that not every generation understands it nor has a desire to understand it," Pratt said. "I'd hate to think that I was pleasing a bride and groom but horrifying their grandmother who may have never even heard of an iPad."

Some photographers are bold enough to predict a total digital takeover.

"I just foresee a time when the wedding album becomes non-existent or continues falling away," said Daniel Lanton, of Darkershadeofbrown Photography, in Pennsylvania. Almost as a test, he started offering digital iPad albums a few months ago.

"Now I'm selling more iPads with bound albums," Lanton said. "I sold six in the first week." And he's turned them into an upsell tactic. Since his weddings schedule a year or two in advance, he can offer to shoot engagement photos right away, and include the iPad right then.

"And for me, in terms of marketing, when I sell an iPad with pictures on it, they're available for every social media the bride has," Lanton said. "With a hardback album, you're just sitting at home and it's almost an obligation for people to see - if it's not collecting dust somewhere after a couple years."

There's one thing all the photographers seem to agree on: Digital may be easily shared, but it's also easily lost.

Nordstrom at the George Eastman House notes she still has images on metal plates, showing brides and weddings from the mid 1800s. Newer photo prints on paper will likely last more than a century if stored well.

But digital technology and file formats rapidly evolve - from floppy disk to hard drive to thumb drive to online storage. Today's flourishing Facebook page can be yesteryear's abandoned MySpace page.

The average lifespan of a hard drive is about three years, Nordstrom warns, and even online photo companies can go out of business.

"Even an iPad can get stolen," Nordstrom said, "or worse dropped, or run-over by a car. And unless you backed them up somewhere, there go your wedding pictures."

So her advice is this: Even if you get the iPad album, get the pink and gilded album too.