Wedding photo book: everything you wanted to know

The best thing, that you can do with your photos - is to print them out.

And, of course, photos of such an important day deserve much more than to be simply printed.

Aren’t albums the most beautiful way to treasure your memories? In my opinion they definitely are!

And most importantly, this thing is for ages!

It won’t fade like your grandmother’s photos in albums.
It won’t disappear permanently when the hard drive dies.
It won’t be removed from the cloud storage when you forget to pay a year subscription.

Table of contents.

What is a Wedding Photo Book?
Why would you need a Wedding Album?
Advantages of a Wedding Photo Book.
Disadvantages of a Photo Album.
The Cost of a Photo Album
Catalogues of Covers.
An Example of a Wedding Photo Book (video).
What about a self-made album?
Design of a Wedding Photo Album.
Photo album templates for free.
An example of a Wedding Photo Album, included in a wedding package.

What is a Wedding Photo Book?

The days, when wedding books were made as usual photo albums, when photographs have to be inserted into special “pockets” or glued, are gone long ago. Besides, all these operations caused an irreparable harm to the photographs, and the outside appearance of such an album left much to be desired, without mentioning any signs of design.

Classical photo albums were replaced by Photo Books (also called Photo Books). A Photo Album differs from a usual photo album in that the photos are typographically printed directly on pages and then are compiled into a book with a book binding.

Why would you need a Wedding Album?

I don’t get tired of praising the photo albums and how huge can be the difference between getting photos in digital form and something tangible, that you can touch and feel.

High quality albums will treasure your precious memories a life long. It’s quite hard to explain those feelings with words. But just imagine sitting down with a cup of coffee or chocolate and reliving that wonderful day. I’m sure you will dive into the ocean of emotions. You will return back to the day when you promised to love each other forever. You will laugh by remembering those beautiful moments. You will cry after seeing your tears in the photos. You will smile by seeing glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person.

It’s so different to look at the photographs in front of the computer and to hold an album. Do you think you will feel the same way?

And what are you going to show to your grandchildren? Will you be flipping hundreds of photos on a small screen of mobile phone?

After all, all that remains to you after the wedding is the rings, your love and memories of this day. And you can have an album. And album to love and share. An album to fill your heart.

Advantages of a Wedding Photo Book

01

Freedom in decoration and a unique design

The photographs are placed on pages in the most advantageous way, not only representing the story of your day in a chronological order, but the entire book represents a ready, completed product, pleasant to keep in hands.

02

Heavy sheets

Every page is made on a plastic basis, which practically cannot be damaged, torn, crumpled, etc. The pages can’t fall out and get lost.

03

Tactile feelings

It’s nothing like several hundreds of digital images on a hard disk, but a complete product pleasant to touch, to look at and to show to your friends. It holds the best photographs of your wedding.

04

Durability

You cannot be sure that in 50 years of technology development your children and grandchildren would be able to look through your digital photos, and the photographs printed separately can be worn out because of fragility of the material. It is much easier to keep a Photo Album and to pass over from generation to generation.

05

A wide choice of covers

You can order a book with a cover made of high quality faux leather material, textile, with a magnificent leather binding, metal cover design and a variety of other options.

06

Easy to replicate

You can order copies of Photo Albums or books of a smaller format for your parents, guests and friends. The same album in different covers and of different sizes is like putting two and two together.

Disadvantages of a Wedding Photo Book

01

Costs

The cost of a Photo Album in comparison with usual printing of the photos is high, and the design, the page layout and printing takes several weeks. But when it is referred to one of the most long-awaited days in your life that can never be repeated and the memories about which you would like to keep forever, do these details matter?

02

Time to wait

The time spent on design, preparing the layout and printing can last for a few weeks. Of course, photos in the nearest photo laboratory will be printed to you tomorrow, but …

The result is completely different.

03

Sizes limitation

Unlike individual photos, you cannot print a photo album with a size of 1m x 2m, for example.

But, most likely, you don’t need an album of a bed-size at home? :)

The Cost of a Wedding Photo Book

The final price is calculated individually.

The price starts from 300 euros for a small format. The average price of a photo album of a size of 35×35 cm with 50 pages is 400-500 euros.

Think beforehand

If you plan (and I’m sure that you do, because every moment of the day when your family was born is precious to you) to order a Photo Album, you should definitely inform your photographer about it in advance. The shooting for a Photo Album has its own particularities and taking a decision before the start of shooting you will significantly facilitate the subsequent work of the page layout designer.

Certainly, a Photo Album can be ordered not only for a wedding photo shoot, but also for any other kind of photo shooting.

What do you pay for?

The cost of my wedding albums includes:

high end retouching of portraits;
detailed color adjustment and stylization;
removal of unwanted garbage and details;
individual layout and design of the album;
printing of the Photo Album.

Wedding Album Price

The price of a Photo Album depends on the quantity of spreads, book size and manufacturing materials. You can see below the estimated prices for the most popular combinations of size, covers and the number of pages.

It’s logical that the smaller is the size of the Photo Album and the number of spreads as well as the cheaper are the materials, the lower will be the total cost. And, correspondingly, if you choose a bigger size, natural materials and a considerable number of pages, you should be ready to higher expenses.

Catalogues of Covers

I collaborate only with the best manufacturers of printed products, who guarantee not only the highest quality, but provide also the widest choice.

Below are links to the catalogs of different manufacturers. You can view or download them in pdf format.

Catalogue of classic albums

An Example of a Wedding Photo Album

Well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here you can see what a wedding Photo Book is, and how it may look like.

Have a look at the link to see one more sample of a Wedding Photo Album made in GB. The couple has ordered this album as a first anniversary gift.

And what about a self-made album?

You can find a lot of recommendations on how to make your own wedding album online. And, at first glance, there is nothing difficult in throwing photos into a collage, either. And there is plenty of different low-cost printing companies on the market. And I even don’t mention various torrent resources littered with frames of hearts and pigeons. By mixing all of the above together, we get an unimaginable cocktail, proudly referred to as a wedding (family, child, etc. – underline) Photo Album.

Only a few people are aware of the fact that a real high-quality photo album does not consist of downloading a simple program from the Internet and sticking a dozen of photos on a sheet.

The Photo Album, which you will proudly show to your children and pass down from generation to generation, is not “backyard made”. Each of the photo album creating phase must be performed on a truly professional level.

Design of a Wedding Photo Album

The process of making a photo album consists of several steps.

At least a couple of months is needed to make your dream about an album come true.

Selection of photos

Post-production and color correction

Layout and design preparation

Printing

Delivery of an Album

Selection and retouching

Let's start with the most important thing that makes the basis of any wedding album - your photos. Even if the photographer gave you all the post-processed photos, this doesn't mean that they are ready to be placed in an album. The difference in print and digital perception is quite huge. You flip through digital photos one by one, not paying particular attention to details. Usually you just focus on how you look in this photo in general. While in the printed photo, you begin to notice not only yourself, but also the smallest details of the background. And the graffiti on the walls, electrical wires, tourists in bright clothes, rubbish on the road and other unchangeable attributes of modern life begin to hurt your eyes.

And you will be surprised by how a pair of pimples will deface the portrait that you liked so much. Just because you didn't see them in digital version.

From here, we make the first conclusion: the photos should be edited and retouched more carefully.

Color-correction

The next step is the choice of colors, which must be strictly used in the whole photo album. It is impossible to put a photo with emerald green forest on one spread, and a magenta color of the carpet in the ceremony hall. Colors should be designed in the same style and can't change from turn to turn.

The second conclusion follows: all the photos in the album should be edited to the same color scheme.

Layout preparation and design

There are certain rules on how photos should be placed at a turn. So that the viewer's attention does not escape important details. Only the best photos should be used in the album, so that every turn is not overloaded with details and the whole book is not filled with a set of all possible combinations of styles. Beginners in 98% of cases sin in a chaotic arrangement of photos, they don't select the pictures either by style or by mood, guided only by the desire to print as many photos as possible.

Therefore, the third conclusion is that the layout of an album should be simple and harmonious.

Personally, I think that photographs are the most important thing in the wedding album. So any other elements, be it frames, texts or design, should not distract attention from pictures, but only complement and emphasize them. Therefore, the design of a photo album should be done by a professional who has already paid his dues for you and made the same mistakes.

Wedding Photo Album Printing

Choosing a proper album company is an equally important step in getting a photo album of your dreams. Nowadays there is plenty of places where you can have your photos printed out. But at the same time only a few of them are truly professionals. The main requirements for printed products are that they are not made for one generation only:

- durability of gluing and stitching

- cover is made from the best materials

- print quality must be very high

-sheets need to be strong and heavy

Therefore, you need to print photo albums only in proven companies with great reputation.

Delivery of a Photo Album

The photo album should be packed very well to avoid damage on delivery. The transport company is obliged to insure your package so that in case of any problems you don’t have to pay for the printing of the album again. And, of course, you need to choose only a well-proven transport company.

Free photo album templates.

I’ve created a set of PSD photo album templates for professional photographers and designers. You can download them for free and use for your album design. I hope it will speed up your designing process and improves your creativity.