Mrs. Ant, New York/Jamaica
Age and Occupation: 25, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Finance
Engagement Date: July 26, 2005
Wedding Date: November 18, 2006
Blogging Since: February 15, 2006
Venue: Rockhouse Hotel
About Me: I live in New York but I'm planning a destination wedding in Negril, Jamaica. My fiance and I are high school sweethearts!
DIY Album Design
August 16th, 2007 @ 4:05 pm by Mrs. Ant
Mr. Ant and I actually met while working together on our award-winning high school yearbook. Our teenage romance blossomed amidst layout designs, cropped photos, and publishing software. So when we got married many years later, it was only fitting that we have a kick-ass wedding album.
Here are 42 (out of 56 total) spreads that I custom designed myself for our album.
Photography by Tony Yang. Album design by yours truly.
I decided to custom design the album myself for many reasons:
- To save money - Professional album designers charge anywhere from $30 to $100 per spread. (1 spread = 2 pages) I saved myself thousands of dollars in design fees.
- To get it done right - I wasn’t a fan of the professional work I was seeing. Many of the album designs out there are boring and uninspired. I wanted something better.
In my not-so-humble opinion, I think that I did a great job! I am really really proud of it! (I secretly wonder how my DIY album design would fare in the ultra-competitive WPPI album competition.. or the even more ultra-competitive Weddingbee DIY contest.)
To be honest, I actually finished the album design several months ago, but never posted about it because I wasn’t sure how helpful it’d be to the Weddingbee community. But I changed my mind when I recently found out that quite a few of the other bees are custom designing their own albums as well! 
How many of you are also designing your own albums? Are you using drag-and-drop pre-made template designs (MyPublisher, Blurb, etc.)? Or are you custom designing from scratch (Indesign, Photoshop, Powerpoint, etc)?
If you are interested in viewing the entire 56 spread album in a larger format, please email me at ant@weddingbee.com and tell me a bit about yourself. (Are you a bride also designing her own album? A photographer/ album designer?)
Coming up… the flush-mount album company and the design program I used.
32 Responses to “DIY Album Design”
You already know what I think of your awesomeness… but had to say again… WOW WOW WOW!!!! 
Your wedding was soooo beautiful!
I really love how all the colors just pop!
WOW… you really did an amazing job putting it together…
I’ve put together something with Blurb, but haven’t had it printed yet. I was frustrated by the limited layout designs. I may actually try again with something more customizable. Yours is beautiful, you definitely have the skills!
Wow — Mrs. Ant, SOOO inspirational. I recently hired Tony to shoot an “Intime” session as a gift for Mr. Onion and I discovered him because of your photos!
I also didn’t know what we were going to do about an album because we just didn’t have the money for a professional one. I’m so impressed with your and would love to know more. I’ll drop you an email.
Cheers!
Simply stunning!
I just got mine from kodakgallery.com last week. I’m a pretty big-time scrapbooker, but I wanted something quick, and this definitely fills the bill.
Kodakgallery’s books don’t have a huge number of options, but if you’re someone who can get bogged down in minutiae, that can keep you from getting distracted. I work with someone who got married about five years ago, and hasn’t finished her album because she can’t decide on what kind of paper to use.
That being said, it’s more than just plopping 1-4 shots on each page (although there is an “autofill” option if you really want to get hands-off about it). My favorite option is the full bleed, which I practically had to ration in order to keep myself from doing it on every other page. On the other end of the spectrum is a 3 by 3 block of squares, which I found to be a great way to include “detail” photos.
This book just covers the formals and ceremony, and I might do another of my favorite reception photos, but I don’t think they will take the place of my scrapbook. I’d anticipate the scrapbook being a lot more informal, with behind-the-scenes anecdotes, etc, that would seem out of place in a formal album.
STUNNING! Wow. I’m very impressed with the album as well as the party and photos! I’m officially inspired!
Beautiful! I’m planning on putting together our album myself — I’ve done one for a trip we took together on Snapfish, though I may be leaning towards My Publisher for a wedding album — I like what I’ve seen of their work so far. And, of course, I still may also do an old-fashioned album with prints and photo corners.
Really amazing job! I know the adobe programs…but your design sense is amazing. Fabulous job.
I love this. Great inspiration!
you’re going to make me regret not trying hard enough to convince Mr. Violet to just make our own album. He likes the look of the professional binding and thickness of the albums that our photog. offers..
your album is gorgeous! love all the vibrant colors.
AWESOME!!!!
it looks so lovely! i have one question though, some of the pics look like they would collide with the break in the center of the album (i.e. the one of the bridesmaids on the 6th slide)… are you ok with the split? or am i looking at these wrong and each slide is on one page?
You are very very talented. Thank you for sharing this.
We’re getting the album through our photographer.
Yours looks profesionally done- nice layout. Of course having nice pictures makes a difference! I think I had already seen some of these on Tony’s photography blog or website somewhere. Very nice.
Thanks everyone for the kind words. I’m glad you like it too and it’s not just me! haha
Kim, you have a very observant eye. Yes, some of the layouts have photos that could be “split” by the center (aka gutter). But the album style we used is a flush-mount album that lays flat and is completely gutterless/ seamless. It allows for panoramic layouts. More on this later…
Mrs. Ant - your album is BEAUTIFUL! I love your layouts. Great job!
i have to do my own album after the wedding, so i can’t wait to see your next post about the company who’s printing yours as well as the program you used. i’m planning to do a quick album with kodak or mypublisher, but for the real thing, i’ll take my time and do my own design. thanx for this post!
The very last page is just perfect, you know.
Beautiful! And i love the little tidbit about how you two met on the yearbook staff.
An album is included in our photographer’s package but I plan on designing my own as well, using InDesign.
oh my goodness mrs. ant! this is amazing! i love it. haha, i totally agree with miss corn.
You did an amazing job….
Seriously, I’d be interested in hiring you as well!
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the layout is amazing. but where did you get this printed? my publisher? blurb? i’m looking to make a picture guestbook, so i’d sincerely appreciate your suggestions.
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I would love to know more about this…it is gorgeous……
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