How to preserve wedding files?

I am working on my nephew's wedding images. I shot a lot (did quite a bit of spray and pray ), and ended up with approximately 13 GB in RAW files. As I edit they change size. I wonder about CDs and DVDs being phased out as I am wondering how to preserve the files for my nephew and his wife? I could burn over a dozen CDs, a couple of DVDs, a flash drive or an external hard drive. I am trying to figure out which would be the best bet for long term storage and retrieval? I am thinking the flash drive or external hard drive.

The flash drive is less expensive and would contain only the wedding shots I take, but it's small and may get lost that's why I thought of a external passport drive. It's bigger, less likely to be lost, can store both high and low res photos, and they could add other photos from the wedding from family and friends as well as the disposable cameras they had out. Thoughts? Ideas?

Digital archiving requires a long term plan, but it's not a put away safely and forget about it sort of situation. Successful archiving will require occasional updating. It's very easy, but someone has to remember to do it.

All of the processed files will probably fit on a single DVD. Are you giving them the files? Make 2 copies of the DVD for yourself, and keep the files on your hard drive, backing up as you normally do. Give the couple a DVD, and encourage them to make copies. They should also store them on their hard drive. Maybe keep a copy of the DVD at work. They should give copies of the DVD to parents, siblings, etc.... If they want to add other files some sort of drive would be fine, but they could also easily burn new DVDs. Discs or drives doesn't matter much; use whatever people like to use. They important thing is that there are multiple copies in different locations. As soon as they buy a computer that doesn't have a DVD drive it's time to make sure a set of files gets copied to whatever the new media is. It's easy to do, it just needs to be remembered to be done.

If you are going to keep the raw files it may be up to you to be the keeper. I think they just confuse non-photographers. For weddings I keep them until I am sure there won't be any re-processing needed, and then I delete them. I figure after a year or so it's extremely unlikely I'll ever go back and reprocess wedding photos. And don't be tempted to keep every shot. The trash can is a wonderful tool.

We all collect digital information that we need to maintain. Right now it may seem like we have to keep track of multiple discs and hard drives and devices, but as memory gets cheaper and bigger, and other solutions (internet storage and backup) are introduced it will all get condensed into utility services that everyone uses to do our digital archiving for us. For now people need to be concerned about archiving their wedding photos, but not long from now those 13GB are just going to be a drop in the bucket of all the other digital info they need to maintain through regular technology upgrades.

Well said Matt

I would prefer not to give them a disc or the files and to ideally have them come to me for printing, but they asked for the files and this was my wedding gift- the photos. I have strongly and I mean in the contract stating if they don't use my printer I don't want to hear about poor quality. I also didn't commit to giving a disc, it was assumed by the bride. I want to make them happy, and know I am learning as I go, so I guess I could withhold the high res files so they print through me and give away low res files? I have no issue burning a low res set for internet sharing (with my copyright), I guess I just wanted to avoid burning multiple discs for them. I also do not want to be handing out 10 discs to family so they print at walmart and then accuse me of crap work. Not to mention, if I get the photos printed, I could make some money, as it was I lost money. I paid for gas 70 miles one way, and rental fees that I wasn't 100% reimbursed for. So I was hoping to make a few small bucks off of parents, but if I give a disc to my step sister in law she will go to snapfish and display those. She's ultra cheap. Ack, this turned into a novel, sorry if you read my rambling.