I'm still leaning to the 1840s rather than the 1850s. Hannah White's cap is a lot more like this example from 1828 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harding_Mrs_Blake.jpg than the example from the 1850s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ingres_Princess_Albert_de_Broglie.jpg which as you can see is a mere wisp hardly visible at the front. By the late 1840s the earlier style would be getting rather old fashioned, though older women do tend to hang on to the styles of their youth. :-) Also, I don't think Hannah looks to be in her 50s in the portrait. Women of an earlier time tended to look older at a given age than they do today. Check out this tie from the 1840s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ludwig_des_Coudres_001.jpg Young people then as now tend to be "trendy" :-) Also this fashion plate from 1848 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mens_fashion_plate_1848.jpg The centre man's outfit from tie, shirt, vest, coat, hairstyle and even extended sideburns is _very_ similar to William White's younger portrait. So if the portrait was painted in the late 1840s then William would have been about 20 and Hannah in her late 40s, rather than well into her 50s.

That's not bad, Tinmantu! I still don't know how bad daesaflgatorfan's photo is. What I do when I touch up a photo, it to zoom in on it, section by section, and eventually do the whole photo. I also constantly save it so that in case I mess something up, I don't lose everything. One last thing, in darker photos, I brighten them up as I do the touch-ups, then darken them back to the original when I get finished. Kt

Oh man, this is a huge issue for me. In general, I am not a pack rat. However, there are a few big stumbling blocks for me. The first is a desk my father made for me. It is the only thing I own that came from him. It is well made for a home project, but it is too small and does not work at all in my home office. I have nowhere else to put it. I want to replace it but the thought of sending it off to a thrift shop is killing me. I also have jewelry from my mother, and more to come since she is still quite alive. I also will inherit sets of Limoges and Spode china, a big silver service, Boehm birds and on and on. None of these items fit my lifestyle. I will offer them to my nieces but their lifestyle is even more casual than mine. Yet, I know all these items are important to my mother and I hate to let them go. I also have an attic full of old Fisher Price and Playskool toys that I saved for my grandchildren -- who never materialized! I am not sure what they represent to me, but I simply cannot part with them. Maybe it's the knowledge that I am never going to be a grandmother which honestly doesn;t bother me that much. I have four darling grand nieces and nephews. Here's another -- miles and miles of old home movies. I have had them all transferred onto DVDs, but I feel so nostalgic about the films. Just seeing them and smelling them brings back a rush of memories of my father, who loved his 16 mm camera. I guess they will stay in the family until they reach a generation who doesn't give a hoot about them and tosses them in the dumpster. I dread the day when I clean out my mother's house, which is enormous and packed with stuff. A lot can be dumped or sold but there also are a lot of family items. Why oh why do we do this to ourselves??

You don't HAVE to order any for anyone. Don't let the fact that the photographer offers packages make you think it is somehow expected to send photos to lots of people (which is probably why the photographer does it). As you noticed, your siblings didn't send any to you. I think your instinct of getting a nice portrait for each parent household makes the most sense. (If you put it in a pretty frame, you can give it to them as a gift, maybe for Mothers/Fathers Day -- the ONE time you can give them all the same thing, at least until there are pictures of kids!). You can ask in advance what size they would prefer; then if they want more, they can tell you then. At the wedding, when people are posing for formal shots, they will tell you then if they want a copy of something else. In fact, I think I might feel kind of presumed upon if someone (other than my child or perhaps a sibling) presented me with a formal photo from their wedding; do they expect me to frame it and display it in my home, and will they be offended if I don't? If that were the case, all our homes would be filled with nothing but pictures of other people's weddings! If you have a group shot taken of the whole family together, though, that's a nice (and generous) thing to send to some or all of the others in the shot, or maybe some who couldn't make it but would appreciate it. After all, how often are we all together and dressed up pretty? :-) You can do this for groups of friends, too. It does start to add up, though, so this is an extra-generous gift, certainly not a "requirement."