the finished product : wedding albums

A wedding doesn’t feel complete until the album is finished. Wrapping up all of the loose ends and sending an album on it’s way makes me feel like I’ve done my job. It can take quite some time to do so, because of the many steps in the album design process, but the finished product is worth it. It’s one thing to sit down at your computer in front of a thousand or so images and re-live the wedding day… it’s quite another to gather family and friends around as you flip through the pages that tell a concise story of the day.

Quick show of hands. Who doesn’t have a wedding album and said they would make their own?

Don’t worry my hand is raised too.

Narrowing down the album images is always one of the hardest tasks. In an effort to allow clients to steer the direction of the album to make sure their favorites are included, in the past I gave them the task of selecting the best 75-100. This has been a somewhat successful practice, but it always adds months to the album process and a bit of frustration on the part of clients as they make the hard decision of what to include and what not to. The hardest part is getting started, and really not many people want to sit in front of the computer for a few hours while they get to know the differences between xx_reception103 and xx_reception104. I have already done that in editing, so for me to go in and choose the better picture is not that challenging. Moving forward, I’m going to start the design process and create the best layout and story that I see fit for the album, then allow clients to adjust from there. Since I do all of the design and layout in house using InDesign, it’s very easy for me to change layouts and create new ones to accommodate the wedding images. Ideally I want to present clients with the best album possible, and then allow them to make changes, add pages, replace images as they see fit.

The album you see above is the hot off the press and I thought it was time to update my earlier blog post on albums with some new images and information. This book is 33 pages and features a custom metal cover imprinted with an image and bound in leather. The company I work with is Finao, based out of my home state Michigan, and I have always been happy with their work. One of the things people remark upon is the fact that the actual pages are so thick (in a good way). The album has a presence and weight as a wedding album should. The images essentially are the pages; archival quality photographic paper is printed with the design and bound right in to the book. This allows for the unlimited customization as well as dramatic panoramic spreads… which are one of my favorite parts. Until you can see one of these in person I hope you enjoyed flipping through these images… and trust me, it’s worth having someone put an album together for you instead of putting it off for five years. Who wants to design mine?