Vicky and Brad have been very, VERY patient in understanding that it can take me a while to get the photos back, partly because I am a perfectionist and want my clients to really like the whole package (a note for anyone who reads this, I'm pretty good about getting digital pics to people within the first week, via Flickr, but trying to get them all burned to disk was another story).
It's to the point where I have realized, I need to change my policy. Offering an entire disc of originals in a timely manner would only be realistic if I were doing this full time. It takes a lot longer to burn and sort through 600-1000 full-resolution (up to 10MB) photos than I had realized (obviously, I dind't really think that one all the way through).
The bottom line is that, as a photographer, you don't want your clients to see any pics that don't look great. Even if you're working with a really photogenic and good looking couple, you still have reservations about letting them see photos that they might not be excited about. The fact is, most clients won't really want to see all those other photos. My friend Jocelyn said that her engagement photographer simply told her and her fiancee, "Look, I'm just going to give you the best digital prints. Trust me... you don't want to see the other ones anyway." If you're a perfectionist, like I am, you will have to fight the tendency to want to edit every single little photograph and make it look great... but you just can't do that. Maybe if there were 48 hours in a day, but not when there are just 24.
I guess it might have been a little smarter for me to read up on the subject and follow the advice of other photographers, before I started doing this on my own. I am just one of those people who likes to try to do more, more, more, so it seemed like it would be ok to offer the whole disk, but I am realizing, that was not the smartest move on my part. What happens is, when you put yourself under a ton of pressure to do a huge, time consuming project, you will end up taking a lot longer to do it, than if you just kept it simple in the first place. This is because, in the back of your mind, you will be looking for a big sixteen hour block of time to work on all the pics (when you're passionate about it, you really get on a roll with editing and don't want to stop, so you look for these big blocks - but unfortunately, they never seem to arise!!!).
So I want to take this moment to thank all of my clients for their patience. I am learning all this as I go along, and have been going through the busiest time of my life, but I am hoping things will settle down soon!
Congratultions Brad and Vicky. You are a beautiful couple and have been absolutely wonderful to work with!!
