How July saved our Marriage
It’s a running joke between me and Jay that he put our marriage on the rocks because he lost our wedding photos, haha! And it all started when our old laptop conked out and we had to transfer files from the old laptop to the new.
To free up more space, Jay thought it would be best to temporarily store our wedding photos in an external hard drive which turned out to be a bad decision because the hard drive ceased working and Jay had to extract the files and transfer them again.
How we lost our wedding photos
There were two folders marked ”wedding” – one had the beautiful photos taken by a friend from church, Maan Villanueva, who helped us document our wedding; and another folder with the photos gathered from guests who brought their own digital cameras.
Back then, phone cameras weren’t a thing yet.
Apparently, Jay got confused and thought he had copied the file twice, so he decided to just transfer one and delete the other. That one he chose was the guests’ photos.
The official photos taken by Maan were deleted. Gah!
Saving what was left
I’m not sure if you saw my post on Facebook when I had our raw video salvaged and transferred into a flash drive. It took me years to find the right service to do it. We almost lost that, too, with all the moving we had to do. Thankfully, the files had been safely moved by Aurora Ubana Video Home Transfer and are just waiting for Jay to find the time to edit.
As for the lost photos, it made me very sad, but there was no use crying over spilled milk.
My sister-in-law, who acted as our wedding coordinator, had some of Maan’s photos printed and placed in a red photo album on my birthday in 2004 (year of our wedding) as a gift.
She wasn’t able to print all of them, just a handful, but at least we had some of them.
July to the rescue!
I gave these photos and the ones taken by our guests to July Carrasca of Photo Book at DotxPixelz who scanned the old photos and together with the digital copies, laid them all out in a photo book.
She made me choose the design for the cover and even accommodated my request to add lyrics to a couple of songs we wrote for our wedding.
July, also, took the liberty to print out the text of the vows we took on the day of our wedding.
It was good to be reminded of the beginning of our journey and the direction we wanted to take as a couple and as a family.
How to order a photo book from July Carrasca:
Just to break down how the process works:
Save the photos, save the memories!
July sent our wedding photo book to us the day after Valentine’s day. It was such a very thoughtful gesture. One for the books.
Just to clarify, July didn’t have to save our marriage, haha! She saved the memories from our wedding.
Ours was not a fancy wedding. We don’t have those emotional, cinematic videos to share on Facebook or Instagrammable photos to wow today’s meticulous, overly critical social media audience.
But it matters so much to me to keep the photos we have, however faded, to keep the memory alive, for us, for our children, and our children’s children, for them to see how God had orchestrated our marriage, our journey, and their existence.
I will treasure this photo book and the memories it holds for the rest of my life.
“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” Mark 10:9.
Photo Book Design by July Carrasca
Email: [email protected]
Contact number: 0929-342-442-0
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/dotpxelzphotobook/
14 Comments
juvy ann
Hi Sis, Ate Au is a relative and they have been in this business for ages. They started documenting family events/affairs. They are really good at it too. I am glad they were able to salvage your wedding video.
Camille
Thanks for this informative post! Will take note of this, especially my wedding day is coming in 3 months.
Kath
Hahaha. I think it’s funny of you saying that your marriage is almost ruined because of lost photos. Because I agree, wedding photos are just too important! ? love your new photobook. ?
Pheng
I would love another photobook for our first wedding! I only have a photobook of our 2nd church wedding. Indeed those wedding shots are of great value.
Karla Niña Mallannao
I also have 2 photobooks with me but different brand. Hardcopy photos are still important for me. Hihi
Charlyn June Awing
One thing I hate about this new technology is that we depend on them like for sure, our files and memories won’t be gone in just a click. It happened to me many times and I guess I’m going to shift to printables again as we did before. Just yesterday, I was fixing all the files inside my external hard drive and deleting some unnecessary documents to free up some space for new ones. Hoping na wala akong na–delete na importante, haha!
Blair villanueva
Printed photographs are still cool and gives a different delight. Glad you still save some and restore them 🙂
Gel Jose
For a while, I veered away from printed photos as I thought that digital copies won’t add to clutter. But really sometimes, having phyical copies of your memories on hand is like a touchstone to the feelings they evoke. At least with photobooks like these, your memories take the form of stories that you choose.
Katherine
My bf saved copies of our first trips together in an HD and it got damaged too. I was so mad because I’d been asking him to make a cloud backup and he didn’t. So I understand how it was upsetting for you – photos are treasured memories! Good thing abt the photobook. 🙂
Dale
Nothing beats printed photos pa rin talaga. 🙂
Wendy
Lucky you got someone to print it nicely. I also still love looking at prints. my children love looking at their baby photos in their baby album:-).
theresa
Cool! I’m also thinking if I can save my wedding photos like that. I think I might do the same like you did.
Karla
Thanks for the recommendation. My mom is bugging me to have printed copies of our family pictures. I always tell her it’s on Facebook. I just realized that it’s important to have hard copies too!
July
We have special rates for this feb po. Check out our page❤️❤️❤️