Creating a Wedding Album

1/08/17

Our Favorite Gift We Gave This Christmas

Hands down, the best Christmas presents my husband and I purchased this year were our wedding albums for our parents. Our wedding photography was one of my favorite things we invested in for our wedding (big surprise there, right??), so displaying the best photos in a well made, beautifully printed album was a no-brainer.

While looking for a company to print the albums (we ended up going with AdoramaPix.com) and designing the books, I realized that it really isn’t easy. Sure, companies like Vistaprint offer album printing, but we wanted something quality – something to last. To help YOU decide which company is best for you and how to best layout your album, I’ve compiled my tips for creating the perfect wedding album.

Things to Look for In a Album Company

  • Thick pages are a must. If you want an album that can stand the test of time, make sure the pages will be strong enough to survive 50+ years of flipping through them. I’m so impressed with AdoramaPix’s pages. It’s hard to even call them pages, because they are as thick as a piece of cardboard.
  • Be sure to check the processing and shipping time. Quality albums may take up to a few weeks to create, and shipping may add significant cost.
  • What types of paper do they print on? Most album companies offer several different types of paper and each will have a different effect on the brightness, contrast, and shine of the photos. We printed ours on Silk paper and loved it. The photos have so much depth on paper, and the colors look exactly the same as they do on my computer screen.
  • Do they offer other features like rounded corners or gilded edges? These are optional, but can add more personality to your album.
  • Do the albums lay out completely flat when open or is there a gutter that makes it hard to center photos in the center of the book?
  • Does their website make it easy to design your album? “Drag and drop” is the easiest way to do it.

Selecting Photos

  • Your album should tell the story of your wedding day.
  • Consider the future owner of the book. If the album is for you, then pick your favorite photos and the photos that tell your version of the day. If the album is for your parents, think about what their favorite photos might be, and use plenty of shots that include them and their family members.
  • Remember that you don’t have to place the photos in chronological order or exactly how they happened on the day. If you love your bride & groom portraits and think that’s the best way to start the album, you can do that!

Designing Spreads

First, it’s important to think about your album in terms of spreads, not pages. A spread is two pages side by side and what you see when the book is laying open and flat.

  • Don’t overthink it. If it’s possible to use a template on the company’s website, stick to the layouts they’ve already set up, and simply place your photos in the boxes.
  • The biggest photo on a spread will get the most attention, of course, so consider the size of your photos on each spread. Think about where you want your eye to go first when you flip to the next spread.
  • To create a balanced look, mirror the pages across a spread. If the left side of the spread uses 3 small photos on top of 2 larger photos, put the same layout on the right side. If you want to switch it up, put the 2 larger photos on top this time.
  • Not all spreads need to have the same number of photos or use photos that are the same size. Our album was 20 pages and used 4-12 photos per spread.
  • The number of photos on a spread can help set the mood of that part of your wedding day. Fun, busy times of the wedding day fit better with busy pages. Slow, calm times of the wedding day work well on simple pages that use fewer photos.
  • For this reason, it works well to fit many reception and dancing photos onto one spread. These photos many not earn a lot space in the book, but are still fun to use. Making them smaller and using more of them will decrease the “value” of each photo and will require you to look longer at the spread to notice each photo, but your reception may be a good time to do this.
  • If you use a black and white photo on a spread with many photos, be sure to use another black and photo somewhere else on that spread, but not touching it, to balance it out. You don’t want it to look like the odd man out.
  • Make sure the edges of all of your photos align! Websites like AdoramaPix snap the photos into place in line up with the edges of nearby photos, so feel around for that snap when you’re moving where a photo is placed.

Extra Tip

When you’re checking out online, you’ll probably be asked if you’d like to have the photos “auto-enhanced” or “color-corrected”, and if your photos were taken by a professional photographer, the answer to this is NO! You picked your photographer for their shooting and editing style, so if you like the way your photos look already, don’t leave the final editing decisions to a machine or a person who doesn’t know you or what you like. It’s best to leave that box unchecked.

The specs of our album:

  • Hudson Album from AdoramaPix.com
  • 10×12.5 inches
  • Leather cover in Brownstone
  • 20 pages
  • Silk pages
  • Classic Heavy pages
  • No color correction
  • No color debossing on the cover

 

Photographs in our book are by the wonderful Lindsay Davenport Photography

Main Takeaways – Don’t forget…

Quality design and materials + thick pages

Easy to use website and reliable customer service

Balanced design that tells the story of your day

Join Us On The LGP Wedding Newsletter

Twice a month, I talk to the members of the LGP Wedding Newsletter about topics like this, going into greater detail, giving more real world examples and behind-the-scenes “lessons learned” that will help you go into your wedding day with confidence, excitement and no stress.

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